Leetcode243: Shortest Word Distance

Given a list of words and two words word1 and word2, return the shortest distance between these two words in the list.

For example,
Assume that words = ["practice", "makes", "perfect", "coding", "makes"].

Given word1 = “coding”, word2 = “practice”, return 3.
Given word1 = "makes", word2 = "coding", return 1.

Note:

You may assume that word1 does not equal to word2, and word1 and word2 are both in the list.

Solution:

Iterate the String array, if words[i] is either word1 or word2, check if it is different from words[index], which is the start index. If it is different from words[index], then compare the distance from index(start) to i(end) with minDistance. If the String equals to words[index], just set start index i.  After one iteration, we can get the shortest word distance.

Time complexity: O(n)

Space complexity: O(1)

public class Solution {
    public int shortestDistance(String[] words, String word1, String word2) {
        int minDistance = Integer.MAX_VALUE;
        int index = -1;
        for (int i = 0; i < words.length; i++) {
            if (words[i].equals(word1) || words[i].equals(word2)) {
                if (index != -1 && !words[i].equals(words[index])) {
                    minDistance = Math.min(minDistance, i - index);
                }
                index = i;
            }
        }
        return minDistance;
    }
}