539. Minimum Time Difference

Given a list of 24-hour clock time points in "Hour:Minutes" format, find the minimum  minutes difference between any two time points in the list.

Example 1:

Input: ["23:59","00:00"]
Output: 1

Note:

1. The number of time points in the given list is at least 2 and won't exceed 20000.
2. The input time is legal and ranges from 00:00 to 23:59.

Solution:

我当初的想法是，按照每两个元素进行比较，先进行顺时针比较，再进行逆时针比较。但是，想了半天也没想出所以然来。看了别人的答案，才发现自己考虑太过于复杂

顺时针和逆时针之差相差是24h，即是24*60分钟

class Solution(object):
    def findMinDifference(self, timePoints):
        """
        :type timePoints: List[str]
        :rtype: int
        """
        times = sorted(timePoints)
        times = [int(t[:2]) * 60 + int(t[-2:]) for t in times]
        result = 1 << 31
        n = len(times)
        for i in xrange(n):
            if i < n - 1:
                result = min(result, times[i + 1] - times[i])
            else:
                result = min(result, times[0] - times[i] + 24 * 60)
        return result