Longest common prefix

It is often useful to find the common prefix of a set of strings, that is, the longest initial portion of all strings that are identical.

Longest common prefix
You are encouraged to solve this task according to the task description, using any language you may know.

Given a set of strings, R, for a prefix S, it should hold that:

$\forall x\ \in \ R:\ S\leq$_pref $\ x$

(help here: does not express that S is the longest common prefix of x)

An example use case for this: given a set of phone numbers, identify a common dialing code. This can be accomplished by first determining the common prefix (if any), and then matching it against know dialing codes (iteratively dropping characters from rhs until a match is found, as the lcp function may match more than the dialing code).

Test cases

For a function, lcp, accepting a list of strings, the following should hold true (the empty string, $\varepsilon$, is considered a prefix of all strings):

lcp("interspecies","interstelar","interstate") = "inters"
lcp("throne","throne") = "throne"
lcp("throne","dungeon") = $\varepsilon$
lcp("cheese") = "cheese"
lcp($\varepsilon$) = $\varepsilon$
lcp($\emptyset$) = $\varepsilon$
lcp("prefix","suffix") = $\varepsilon$

Task inspired by this stackoverflow question: Find the longest common starting substring in a set of strings

Scala

<lang scala>class TestLCP extends FunSuite {

 test("shared start") {
   assert(lcp("interspecies","interstelar","interstate") === "inters")
   assert(lcp("throne","throne") === "throne")
   assert(lcp("throne","dungeon").isEmpty)
   assert(lcp("cheese") === "cheese")
   assert(lcp("").isEmpty)
   assert(lcp(Nil :_*).isEmpty)
   assert(lcp("prefix","suffix").isEmpty)
 }

 def lcp(list: String*) = list.foldLeft("")((_,_) =>
   (list.min.view,list.max.view).zipped.takeWhile(v => v._1 == v._2).unzip._1.mkString)

}</lang>

zkl

The string method prefix returns the number of common prefix characters. <lang zkl>fcn lcp(s,strings){ s[0,s.prefix(vm.pasteArgs(1))] }</lang> <lang zkl>tester:=TheVault.Test.UnitTester.UnitTester(); tester.testRun(lcp.fp("interspecies","interstelar","interstate"),Void,"inters",__LINE__); tester.testRun(lcp.fp("throne","throne"),Void,"throne",__LINE__); tester.testRun(lcp.fp("throne","dungeon"),Void,"",__LINE__); tester.testRun(lcp.fp("cheese"),Void,"cheese",__LINE__); tester.testRun(lcp.fp(""),Void,"",__LINE__); tester.testRun(lcp.fp("prefix","suffix"),Void,"",__LINE__); tester.stats();</lang> The fp (partial application) method is used to delay running lcp until the tester actually tests.

Output:

===================== Unit Test 1 =====================
Test 1 passed!
===================== Unit Test 2 =====================
Test 2 passed!
===================== Unit Test 3 =====================
Test 3 passed!
===================== Unit Test 4 =====================
Test 4 passed!
===================== Unit Test 5 =====================
Test 5 passed!
===================== Unit Test 6 =====================
Test 6 passed!
6 tests completed.
Passed test(s): 6 (of 6)