Minimum Distances

This wiki to show my solution for HackerRank problem Minimum Distances

Solution steps:

• set the result variable as maximum possible value + 1
• Iterate over all elements in array
• in each iteration check if this element exist before or this is the first time this element appear
• if first time save it’s index in dictionary
• if appear before compare new index with previous index, and store in result variable the minimum so far

Solution in Python 3:

import sys

n = int(input().strip())
A = [int(A_temp) for A_temp in input().strip().split(' ')]
d = dict()
res = (10**5) + 1
for i in range(0,len(A)) :
    if A[i] not in d :
        d[A[i]] = i
    else :
        res = min(i - d[A[i]],res)
if res == (10**5) + 1 :
    print (-1)
else :
    print (res)