WOLFRAM

Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center
Wolfram Language Home Page »

LongestCommonSubsequence
✖
LongestCommonSubsequence

✖

finds the longest contiguous subsequence of elements common to the strings, biomolecular sequences or lists s1 and s2.

Details and Options

  • If there are several common subsequences of the same length, LongestCommonSubsequence returns the one that appears earliest in s1.
  • For strings, setting the option IgnoreCase->True makes LongestCommonSubsequence treat lowercase and uppercase letters as equivalent, and return the form of common subsequence that occurs in s1.

Examples

open allclose all

Basic Examples  (3)Summary of the most common use cases

Find the longest contiguous subsequence common to two strings:

In[1]:=1
✖
https://wolfram.com/xid/0mfgcimzvs0k59di3m-dn28de
Out[1]=1

Find the longest contiguous subsequence common to two lists:

In[1]:=1
✖
https://wolfram.com/xid/0mfgcimzvs0k59di3m-bgobma
Out[1]=1

Find the longest contiguous subsequence common to two biomolecular sequences:

In[1]:=1
✖
https://wolfram.com/xid/0mfgcimzvs0k59di3m-iku12d
Out[1]=1

Applications  (1)Sample problems that can be solved with this function

Longest contiguous DNA subsequence of two genes:

In[1]:=1
✖
https://wolfram.com/xid/0mfgcimzvs0k59di3m-nhlu9h
Out[1]=1

Neat Examples  (1)Surprising or curious use cases

Lengths of the longest common subsequences in random binary sequences of length 1000:

In[1]:=1
✖
https://wolfram.com/xid/0mfgcimzvs0k59di3m-f4tmo5
Out[1]=1
Wolfram Research (2008), LongestCommonSubsequence, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/LongestCommonSubsequence.html (updated 2020).
✖
Wolfram Research (2008), LongestCommonSubsequence, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/LongestCommonSubsequence.html (updated 2020).

Text

Wolfram Research (2008), LongestCommonSubsequence, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/LongestCommonSubsequence.html (updated 2020).

✖
Wolfram Research (2008), LongestCommonSubsequence, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/LongestCommonSubsequence.html (updated 2020).

CMS

Wolfram Language. 2008. "LongestCommonSubsequence." Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Wolfram Research. Last Modified 2020. https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/LongestCommonSubsequence.html.

✖
Wolfram Language. 2008. "LongestCommonSubsequence." Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Wolfram Research. Last Modified 2020. https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/LongestCommonSubsequence.html.

APA

Wolfram Language. (2008). LongestCommonSubsequence. Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Retrieved from https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/LongestCommonSubsequence.html

✖
Wolfram Language. (2008). LongestCommonSubsequence. Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Retrieved from https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/LongestCommonSubsequence.html

BibTeX

@misc{reference.wolfram_2025_longestcommonsubsequence, author="Wolfram Research", title="{LongestCommonSubsequence}", year="2020", howpublished="\url{https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/LongestCommonSubsequence.html}", note=[Accessed: 08-July-2025 ]}

✖
@misc{reference.wolfram_2025_longestcommonsubsequence, author="Wolfram Research", title="{LongestCommonSubsequence}", year="2020", howpublished="\url{https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/LongestCommonSubsequence.html}", note=[Accessed: 08-July-2025 ]}

BibLaTeX

@online{reference.wolfram_2025_longestcommonsubsequence, organization={Wolfram Research}, title={LongestCommonSubsequence}, year={2020}, url={https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/LongestCommonSubsequence.html}, note=[Accessed: 08-July-2025 ]}

✖
@online{reference.wolfram_2025_longestcommonsubsequence, organization={Wolfram Research}, title={LongestCommonSubsequence}, year={2020}, url={https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/LongestCommonSubsequence.html}, note=[Accessed: 08-July-2025 ]}