For example,
Assume that words = ["practice", "makes", "perfect", "coding", "makes"].
Given word1 = “coding”, word2 = “practice”, return 3.
Given word1 = "makes", word2 = "coding", return 1.
public class Solution { public int shortestDistance(String[] words, String word1, String word2) { if (words == null) return -1; int idx1 = -1, idx2 = -1; int diff = words.length; for (int i = 0; i < words.length; i++) { if (words[i].equals(word1)) { idx1 = i; if (idx2 != -1) diff = Math.min(diff, idx1 - idx2); } else if (words[i].equals(word2)) { idx2 = i; if (idx1 != -1) diff = Math.min(diff, idx2 - idx1); } } return diff; } }