Problem
Given a list of words and two words word1 and word2, return the shortest distance between these two words in the list.
Example:Assume that words = [“practice”, “makes”, “perfect”, “coding”, “makes”].
Input: word1 =“coding”, word2 =“practice”Output: 3Input: word1 = “makes”, word2 = “coding”Output: 1Note:You may assume that word1 does not equal to word2, and word1 and word2 are both in the list.
Solution
class Solution {
public int shortestDistance(String[] words, String word1, String word2) {
if (word1.equals(word2)) return 0;
int m = -1, n = -1;
int min = words.length;
for (int i = 0; i < words.length; i++) {
if (words[i].equals(word1)) {
m = i;
if (n != -1) min = Math.min(min, m-n);
} else if (words[i].equals(word2)) {
n = i;
if (m != -1) min = Math.min(min, n-m);
}
}
if (m == -1 || n == -1) return -1;
return min;
}
}