#245 - Shortest Word Distance III

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Problem Description

Given an array of strings wordsDict and two strings that already exist in the array word1 and word2, return the shortest distance between the occurrence of these two words in the list.

Note that word1 and word2 may be the same. It is guaranteed that they represent two individual words in the list.

Solution

/**
 * @param {string[]} wordsDict
 * @param {string} word1
 * @param {string} word2
 * @return {number}
 */
var shortestWordDistance = function(wordsDict, word1, word2) {
  let result = Infinity;
  let lastWord1Index = -1;
  let lastWord2Index = -1;
  const areSameWords = word1 === word2;

  for (let index = 0; index < wordsDict.length; index++) {
    const currentWord = wordsDict[index];

    if (currentWord === word1) {
      if (areSameWords) {
        if (lastWord1Index !== -1) {
          result = Math.min(result, index - lastWord1Index);
        }
      } else if (lastWord2Index !== -1) {
        result = Math.min(result, index - lastWord2Index);
      }
      lastWord1Index = index;
    } else if (!areSameWords && currentWord === word2) {
      if (lastWord1Index !== -1) {
        result = Math.min(result, index - lastWord1Index);
      }
      lastWord2Index = index;
    }
  }

  return result;
};