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Problem · Array

Repeated Shortest Word Distance Queries

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Problem statement

You are given an array words and a batch of queries. Each query contains two distinct words that both appear in words.

For each query [first, second], return the minimum absolute difference between an index containing first and an index containing second.

Preprocess words once, then answer every query. Return the distances in query order.

Function

shortestWordDistances(words: String[], queries: String[][]) → int[]

Examples

Example 1

words = ["practice","makes","perfect","coding","makes"]queries = [["coding","practice"],["makes","coding"],["practice","makes"]]return = [3,1,1]

coding and practice occur at indices 3 and 0. The closest makes to coding is at index 4, and the closest makes to practice is at index 1.

Example 2

words = ["a","b","a","c","b","a"]queries = [["a","b"],["a","c"],["b","c"]]return = [1,1,1]

Each queried pair has adjacent occurrences somewhere in the array, so every minimum distance is 1.

Example 3

words = ["red","blue","green","yellow","red","green"]queries = [["blue","yellow"],["red","green"],["yellow","red"]]return = [2,1,1]

The only blue and yellow positions differ by 2. The later red is adjacent to both green at index 5 and yellow at index 3.

Constraints

2 ≤ words.length ≤ 200000.
1 ≤ queries.length ≤ 200000.
Every word contains 1 to 40 lowercase English letters.
Each query contains exactly two distinct words, and both words occur in words.
The total number of characters across words and queries is at most 2 * 10^6.