Clarify the definition of lexicographic order, including case sensitivity and character encoding, then implement a character-by-character comparison that returns true if the first word comes before the second. Handle edge cases such as equal words, empty strings, and different lengths.
Pro tip: Mention that lexicographic order depends on the underlying character encoding (e.g., ASCII vs Unicode) and that in production code you should use built-in string comparison methods for correctness and performance.
Ask whether the comparison is case-sensitive, which character encoding to assume, and whether equal words are considered sorted.
Explain that lexicographic order compares characters by their code points, proceeding from left to right until a difference is found.
Iterate over the minimum length of the two words, comparing characters at each index; if a difference is found, return whether the first character is less than the second.
If all compared characters are equal, the shorter word is considered smaller; if lengths are equal, the words are equal and sorted if the problem allows equality.
State that the time complexity is O(min(n, m)) and space is O(1), then walk through test cases like 'apple' vs 'apples', 'Zebra' vs 'apple', and empty strings.
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