TikTok | Phone Interview
Anonymous User
2607
TikTokInterview

Lower this value: max(array) - min(array) by setting any three cells in an array to any value.

I felt like the interviewer was looking for an O(N) solution. At the end gave up and brute forced it.

def minDistance(nums):
    if len(nums) <= 3:
        return 0

    nums.sort()

    def helper(index, nums):

        left = 0
        right = len(nums)-1

        for i in range(3):
            if left == index:
                nums[right] = nums[index]
                right -= 1
            elif right == index:
                nums[left] = nums[index]
            else:
                a = abs(nums[index] - nums[left])
                b = abs(nums[index] - nums[right])

                if a < b:
                    nums[right] = nums[index]
                    right -= 1
                else:
                    nums[left] = nums[index]
                    left += 1

    ans = float('inf')
    for i in range(len(nums)):
        cloned = nums[::]
        helper(i, cloned)
        ans = min(ans, max(cloned) - min(cloned))

    return ans

After giving the brute force solution, there was 15 minutes left in the interview to ask questions.

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