Length does not matter in this regard so for example:

```
string 1:    "hi--there-you."    "-15-389"    "criminal-plan"    "abc"

string 2:    "12--(134)-7539"    "-xy-zzy"    "(206)555-1384"    "9.8"

```

Both pairs would return True. My problem is that when I try to compile the code below I get the following error:

```
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.StringIndexOutOfBoundsException: String index out of range: -1
    at java.lang.String.charAt(Unknown Source)
    at SameDashes.sameDashes(SameDashes.java:20)
    at SameDashes.main(SameDashes.java:4)

```

Here is my code:

```
   public static boolean sameDashes(String a, String b){
    int minlength = Math.min(a.length(), b.length());
    String smallstring="";
    String bigstring="";
    if(a.length()== minlength){
        smallstring = a;
        bigstring = b;
    }
    else {
        smallstring = b;
        bigstring =a;
    }
    int counter = 0;
    do {
        if(bigstring.charAt(smallstring.indexOf('-',counter))!='-'){
            return false;
        }
        else if(bigstring.indexOf('-',counter)!= -1){
            return false;
        }
        counter++;

    }while(counter<= bigstring.length());
    return true;
}

```

The code works for some reason with some strings but not with others and I really do not understand why the same error is popping up.