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Program to find minimum distance to the target element using Python
Suppose we have an array nums and two different values target (target must present in nums) and start, we have to find an index i such that nums[i] = target and |i - start| is minimum. We have to return the |i - start|.
So, if the input is like nums = [3,4,5,6,7] target = 7 start = 2, then the output will be 2 because there is only one value that matches with target, that is nums[4], so i = 4. Now |4-2| = 2.
To solve this, we will follow these steps:
minimum := infinity
for i in range 0 to size of nums, do
if nums[i] is same as target, then
if |i - start| < minimum, then
minimum := |i - start|
return minimum
Let us see the following implementation to get better understanding −
Example
from math import inf def solve(nums, target, start): minimum = inf for i in range(len(nums)): if nums[i] == target: if abs(i - start) < minimum: minimum = abs(i - start) return minimum nums = [3,4,5,6,7] target = 7 start = 2 print(solve(nums, target, start))
Input
[3,4,5,6,7], 7, 2
Output
2
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