I have two strings s1 and s2.
I have to check what is the largest occurence of letters in s2 that are in s1.

For example:
s1="xyz"
s2="abxyryxzycx"

it would then return 4 since "yxzy" is the largest substring with all the letters in s1.

It has to be recursive.
My problem is how to keep a runningtab of which substring is largest.

my code is

private static int checkCounter(int oldCounter, int counter)
    {
        if (oldCounter<counter)
            return counter;
        else
            return oldCounter;
        }           
        
    /**
     * this method checks two strings if they have same letters and calls with overloading a method with same name.
     * checks if we reached the last letter and returns the counter
     * if not calls the other method from it with the two strings
     * @param s1 a string
     * @param s2 a string
     */
    public static int maxSection (String s1, String s2)
    {
 
            int counter=0;
            int oldCounter;
            
            if (s2.charAt(0)== s2.charAt(s2.length()-1))
                {
                    oldCounter=counter;
                    return checkCounter(oldCounter,counter);
                }
             else
             {
                  oldCounter=counter;
                 return maxSection(s1,s2,counter,oldCounter);
                }
                
    }
    /** method called from maxSection that is originally called with two strings
     *  it checks if we have reached the end of the string and if yes returns the counter
     *  if not it checks if the first letter of each string is the same.
     *  if not it moves forward one space on string 1 and checks again if it is equal
     *  @param s1 a string
     *  @param s2 a string
     *  @param counter the counter
     *  @param oldCounter the old counter for comparison
     */
     
    public static int maxSection(String s1, String s2, int counter, int oldCounter)
    {
        if (s2.charAt(0)==s2.charAt(s2.length()-1))
            {
                if (oldCounter<counter)
                    oldCounter=counter;
                    s1=s1.substring(1);
                return oldCounter;
            }
        else if (s2.charAt(0)==s1.charAt(0))
            {
               counter++;
               return maxSection(s2.substring(1),s1.substring(0),counter, oldCounter);
            }
        else
            return maxSection(s2.substring(0),s1.substring(1),counter, oldCounter);
        }
        public static void main()
        {
        String s1="xyz";
        String s2 = "abxyryxzycx";
        
        maxSection(s1,s2);
        
        }

Any help would be appreciated.
Leeba

Hello leeba.
You can equip you functions in small generators reporting the status of the variables of interest.

public static int maxSection(String s1, String s2, int counter, int oldCounter) {
        System.out.println("*  " + s1 + "  " + s2 + "  " + counter + "  " + oldCounter);
        if (s2.charAt(0) == s2.charAt(s2.length() - 1)) {
            if (oldCounter < counter) {
                oldCounter = counter;
            }
            s1 = s1.substring(1);
            System.out.println("a  " + s2.substring(1) + "  " + s1.substring(0) + "  " + counter + "  " + oldCounter);
            return oldCounter;
        } else if (s2.charAt(0) == s1.charAt(0)) {
            counter++;
            System.out.println("b  " + s2.substring(1) + "  " + s1.substring(0) + "  " + counter + "  " + oldCounter);
            return maxSection(s2.substring(1), s1.substring(0), counter, oldCounter);
        } else {
            System.out.println("c  " + s2.substring(0) + "  " + s1.substring(1) + "  " + counter + "  " + oldCounter);
            return maxSection(s2.substring(0), s1.substring(1), counter, oldCounter);
        }
    }

and result:

run:
*  xyz  abxyryxzycx  0  0
c  abxyryxzycx  yz  0  0
*  abxyryxzycx  yz  0  0
c  yz  bxyryxzycx  0  0
*  yz  bxyryxzycx  0  0
c  bxyryxzycx  z  0  0
*  bxyryxzycx  z  0  0
a    xyryxzycx  0  0
0

Check and repair possible errors.

I finally got help form my teacher. There were so many problems with the code but i finally got it to work. Thank you.
Leeba

I did not even tried to submit a more detailed analysis of your algorithm. I wrote my own version from scratch. If you are interested in to compare two independent versions, post/mail your code first.

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