🦄 Anagram Cleanse: Letters Only

Difficulty: Beginner Tags: strings, normalize, anagram Series: CS 101

Problem

Write a function that checks if two strings are anagrams of each other. An anagram means both strings contain the exact same letters, just rearranged.

Here's the catch: you need to ignore spaces, punctuation, and capitalization. Only letters matter!

Input

data = {'a': str, 'b': str}

A dictionary with two strings to compare.

Output

bool  # True if they're anagrams, False otherwise

Constraints

• Each string can be up to 100,000 characters long
• Only consider letters a-z (case-insensitive)
• Ignore spaces, punctuation, numbers, and special characters

Examples

Example 1: Anagram Match

Input:  {'a': 'Dormitory', 'b': 'Dirty room!!'}
Output: True

Why? Let's break it down: - String a: "Dormitory" → Remove capitals → "dormitory" → Letters only → "dormitory" - String b: "Dirty room!!" → Remove capitals → "dirty room!!" → Letters only → "dirtyroom"

Now compare the letters: - "dormitory" sorted: d, i, m, o, o, r, r, t, y - "dirtyroom" sorted: d, i, m, o, o, r, r, t, y

They match! So it's True.

Example 2: Not an Anagram

Input:  {'a': 'Hello', 'b': 'Olelhh'}
Output: False

Why? - String a: "Hello" → "hello" → Letters: h, e, l, l, o - String b: "Olelhh" → "olelhh" → Letters: h, h, l, l, e, o

Count comparison: - "hello" has: 1 h, 1 e, 2 l's, 1 o - "olelhh" has: 2 h's, 1 e, 2 l's, 1 o

The h count doesn't match, so it's False.