Create a program or function which takes a list of strings as input, and outputs the longest string that is a substring of all input strings. If there are several substrings of equal length, and no longer substring, output any one of them.

• This may mean outputting the empty string.


• If there are several valid outputs, you may output any one of them. You are not required to give consistent outpput for a given input so long as the output is always valid.


• There will always be at least one string in the input, but there might not be a non-empty string.


• All printable ASCII characters may appear in the input. You may assume those are the only characters that appear.


• You may take input or produce output by any of the default methods.


• 
  Standard loopholes aren't allowed.


• This is code-golf - the fewer bytes of code, the better.

Test cases:

[Inputs] -> [Valid outputs (choose one)]

["hello", "'ello"] -> ["ello"]

["very", "much", "different"] -> [""]

["empty", "", "STRING"] -> [""]

["identical", "identical"] -> ["identical"]

["string", "stRIng"] -> ["st", "ng"]

["this one", "is a substring of this one"] -> ["this one"]

["just one"] -> ["just one"]

["", "", ""] -> [""]

["many outputs", "stuptuo ynam"] -> ["m", "a", "n", "y", " ", "o", "u", "t", "p", "s"]

["many inputs", "any inputs", "ny iii", "yanny"] -> ["ny"]

["%%not&", "ju&#st", "[&]alpha_numeric"] -> ["%"]

Jelly, 12 bytes

Ẇ€œ&/LÐṀḢ¹L?

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Last four bytes are there because of the requirement to only output one answer.

Brachylog (v2), 3 bytes

sᵛw

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Full program. Input from standard input (as a JSON-style list of strings), output to standard output.

Explanation

sᵛw

s    Find a substring

 ᵛ     of every element {of the input}; the same one for each

  w  and output it.

Tiebreak order here is set by the s, favouring the longest substring (the secondary tiebreak doesn't matter, but IIRC it's position within the first element of the input).

Brachylog's s doesn't return empty substrings, so we need a bit of a trick to get around that: instead of making a function submission (which is what's normally done), we write a full program, outputting to standard output. That way, if there's a common substring, we just output it, and we're done. If there isn't a common substring, the program errors out – but it still prints nothing to standard output, thus it outputs the null string as intended.

Python 3, 137 bytes

def a(b):c=[[d[f:e]for e in range(len(d)+1)for f in range(e+1)]for d in b];return max([i for i in c[0]if all(i in j for j in c)],key=len)

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Perl 6, 62 bytes

{~sort(-*.comb,keys [∩] .map(*.comb[^*X.. ^*+1]>>.join))[0]}

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I'm a little annoyed the Perl 6 can't do set operations on lists of lists, which is why there's an extra .comb and >> in there. Another annoying thing is that max can't take an function for how to compare items, meaning I have to user sort instead.

Japt v2.0a0, 24 bytes

mã c f@eøXÃr@XÊ>YÊ?X:Y}P

This is a mess. Why isn't there a max function for arrays in Japt?

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Zsh, 126 bytes

for l in $@

{a=

for i in {0..$[$#l**2]}

{a+=($l[1+i/$#l,1+i%$#l])

}

b=(${${b-$a}:*a})

}

for i in $b

{(($#x<$#i))&&x=$i

}

<<<$x

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We read all possible substrings into $a, and then intersect the common elements of $a and $b. The construct ${b-$a} will only substitue $a on the first iteration: Even if $b is empty (no common strings), it is still set.

for l in $@; {

    a=                              # unset a

    for i in {0..$[$#l**2]}; {      # compound double loop using div/mod

        a+=( $l[1+i/$#l,1+i%$#l] )  # append to a all possible substrings of the given line

    }

    b=( ${${b-$a}:*a} )

#         ${b-$a}                   # if b is unset substitute $a

#       ${       :*a}               # take common elements of ${b-$a} and $a

#   b=(               )             # set b to those elements

}

for i in $b; {                      # for every common substring

    (( $#x < $#i ))&&x=$i           # if the current word is longer, use it

}

<<<$x                               # print to stdout