243.cpp

/* Given a list of words and two words word1 and word2, return the shortest distance between these two words in the list.

For example,
Assume that words = ["practice", "makes", "perfect", "coding", "makes"].

Given word1 = “coding”, word2 = “practice”, return 3.
Given word1 = "makes", word2 = "coding", return 1.

Note:
You may assume that word1 does not equal to word2, and word1 and word2 are both in the list.

  */

// 

class Solution
{
  public:
    int shortestDistance(vector<string> &words, string word1, string word2)
    {
        int p1 = -1, p2 = -1, res = INT_MAX;
        for (int i = 0; i < words.size(); ++i) {
            if (words[i] == word1) p1 = i;
            else if (words[i] == word2) p2 = i;

            if (p1 != -1 && p2 != -1) res = min(res, abs(p1 - p2));
        }
        return res;
    }
};