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Solution: Shortest Word Distance II

Explore how to implement a WordDistance class that efficiently calculates the shortest distance between any two words in an array. Learn to build and use a custom dictionary to store word positions, and apply the two-pointer method to quickly find minimum distances. Understand the time and space complexities involved to optimize your data structure design for coding interviews.

Statement

Design a data structure that takes in an array of strings and efficiently computes the shortest distance between any two different strings in the array.

Implement the WordDistance class:

  • WordDistance(String[] wordsDict): Initializes the object with an array of strings.

  • int shortest(String word1, String word2): Returns the shortest distance between word1 and word2 in the array of strings.

Constraints:

  • 11 \leq wordsDict.length 103\leq10^3 ...