Recursive function to match a string against a wildcard pattern

Question

So I\'ve been trying to solve this assignment whole day, just can\'t get it.

The following function accepts 2 strings, the 2nd (not 1st) possibly containing *

Answer 1

When dealing with algorithms like this, it often pays to break the problem into small chunks in your head.

Since you're string parsing, consider the solution on a character-by-character basis. Furthermore, since you have no control over the actual size of these strings, constrain yourself to considering only the first character of the string at any given time. (well - with one exception)

Once you've determined that the characters you're dealing with warrant further investigation into the rest of the string, toss them away; keeping them around only adds complexity, so why bother? (Conversely, if the characters flat out mismatch, you're done - right?)

Of course, this is a recursion on strings, so you'll have to have a couple of conditions governing failure/success that deal with the overall state of the strings - but those aren't the meat of the problem - check the state of the string at the top of your function, and move on.

I have an algorithm that I whipped up (11 lines of code, plus braces) that I can post if you want a full solution - but I wasn't sure by your message if you wanted to be given the algorithm, or just pointers.