Find the Substring

Problem Overview

• Determine the zero-based index of the first occurrence of pattern x in string s, where x may include a single wildcard * matching any one character.
• Input: s (lowercase a–z) and x (lowercase with at most one *). Output: integer index or -1 if not found.
• Domain: text processing/string search; classic problem for a coding interview.
• Source: Asked in LinkedIn interviews; a practical interview question.