LC 1554 [M] Strings Differ by One Character - ALawliet/algorithms GitHub Wiki

T: O(nm^2)

class Solution:
    def differByOne(self, dict: List[str]) -> bool:
        # only need one pass to solve the problem using hashset:
        seens = set()
        for word in dict:
            for i, c in enumerate(word):
		# change 'abcd' into the form of '*bcd', 'a*cd' ...
                masked_word = word[:i] + '*' + word[i+1:]
                if masked_word in seens:
                    return True
                else:
                    seens.add(masked_word)
        return False