string_is_shifted.md

Problem

Given two strings A and B, return whether or not A can be shifted a number of times to get B.

For example, if A = cdeab and B = abcde return true. If A = xyz and B = xzy return false.

Solution

First, we should return false if the first and second string differ in length.

We can then concatenate one of the strings to itself, like (A + A) and check if B is in the concatenated string. If the string is shifted, we will find it in the new string.

def is_shifted(a, b):
    if len(a) != len(b):
        return False
    return b in a + a

is_shifted("cdeab", "abcde")

True