1848. Minimum Distance to the Target Element
Description
Given an integer array nums
(0-indexed) and two integers target
and start
, find an index i
such that nums[i] == target
and abs(i - start)
is minimized. Note that abs(x)
is the absolute value of x
.
Return abs(i - start)
.
It is guaranteed that target
exists in nums
.
Example 1:
Input: nums = [1,2,3,4,5], target = 5, start = 3 Output: 1 Explanation: nums[4] = 5 is the only value equal to target, so the answer is abs(4 - 3) = 1.
Example 2:
Input: nums = [1], target = 1, start = 0 Output: 0 Explanation: nums[0] = 1 is the only value equal to target, so the answer is abs(0 - 0) = 0.
Example 3:
Input: nums = [1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1], target = 1, start = 0 Output: 0 Explanation: Every value of nums is 1, but nums[0] minimizes abs(i - start), which is abs(0 - 0) = 0.
Constraints:
1 <= nums.length <= 1000
1 <= nums[i] <= 104
0 <= start < nums.length
target
is innums
.
Solutions
Solution 1: Single Pass
Traverse the array, find all indices equal to $target$, then calculate $|i - start|$, and take the minimum value.
The time complexity is $O(n)$, where $n$ is the length of the array $nums$. The space complexity is $O(1)$.
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