LongestCommonSubsequence

LongestCommonSubsequence[s1,s2]

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

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Basic Examples  (3)

Find the longest contiguous subsequence common to two strings:

Find the longest contiguous subsequence common to two lists:

Find the longest contiguous subsequence common to two biomolecular sequences:

Applications  (1)

Longest contiguous DNA subsequence of two genes:

Neat Examples  (1)

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

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).

CMS

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

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: 07-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: 07-July-2025 ]}