Checking if two strings are permutations of each other in Python

Question

I\'m checking if two strings a and b are permutations of each other, and I\'m wondering what the ideal way to do this is in Python. From the Zen of

Answer 1

Sorry that my code is not in Python, I have never used it, but I am sure this can be easily translated into python. I believe this is faster than all the other examples already posted. It is also O(n), but stops as soon as possible:

public boolean isPermutation(String a, String b) {
    if (a.length() != b.length()) {
        return false;
    }

    int[] charCount = new int[256];
    for (int i = 0; i < a.length(); ++i) {
        ++charCount[a.charAt(i)];
    }

    for (int i = 0; i < b.length(); ++i) {
        if (--charCount[b.charAt(i)] < 0) {
            return false;
        }
    }
    return true;
}

First I don't use a dictionary but an array of size 256 for all the characters. Accessing the index should be much faster. Then when the second string is iterated, I immediately return false when the count gets below 0. When the second loop has finished, you can be sure that the strings are a permutation, because the strings have equal length and no character was used more often in b compared to a.