[LinkedIn] Word Distance Finder (Find distance in dictionary)

Example:

WordDistanceFinder finder = new WordDistanceFinder(Arrays.asList(“the”, “quick”, “brown”, “fox”, “quick”));

assert(finder.distance(“fox”,”the”) == 3);

assert(finder.distance(“quick”, “fox”) == 1);

/**
Solution: go step by step, keep updating the max distance
**/

String targetString = "quick";
String targetString2 = "fox";
int index1 = -1, index2 = -1;
int minDistance = Integer.MAX_VALUE, tempDistance = 0;
for (int x = 0; x < strings.length; x++) {
    if (strings[x].equals(targetString)) {
        index1 = x;
    }
    if (strings[x].equals(targetString2)) {
        index2 = x;
    }
    if (index1 != -1 && index2 != -1) { // both words have to be found
        tempDistance = (int) Math.abs(index2 - index1);
        if (tempDistance < minDistance) {
            minDistance = tempDistance;
        }
    }
}
System.out.println("Distance:\t" + minDistance);