Many operating systems let you use an asterisk * as a wildcard when you name a file. The asterisk matches any string, including the empty string.
Wildcards are often used to name several files at once, but they also make naming a single file easier. Say you want to name the file pascalisamazing. If no other file matches pascal*, that pattern alone names pascalisamazing. pascal* is much shorter than pascalisamazing, so it takes less typing.
Given two file names, find the shortest pattern that matches only one of them.