Unique Characters

Problem: Implement an algorithm to determine if a string has all unique characters. What if you cannot use additional data structures?

def isUniqueChars(str):
    #first sort the string O(nlgn)
    sortedStr = "".join(sorted(str))

    isUnique = True

#compare the consecutive characters O(n)
for i in range(len(sortedStr)-1):
if sortedStr[i] == sortedStr[i+1]:
isUnique = False

return isUnique

print isUniqueChars("Amber".lower())
print isUniqueChars("madam".lower())

def isUniqueChars2(str):
#considering the characters are ascii characters building an array for 256 characters acting as a hash table
arr = [0]*256
for c in str:
asciiValue = ord(c)
arr[asciiValue] += 1

isUnique = True

#checking for repeated characters O(1)
for entries in str:
if arr[ord(entries)] > 1:
isUnique = False
return isUnique

print isUniqueChars2("Amber".lower())
print isUniqueChars2("madam".lower())

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