Find shortest distance in string
Last updated: March 1, 2026
Quick Overview
Given a string and two characters, find the shortest distance between the two characters in the string. If either character does not exist in the string, return -1. The function should take the string as input and return an integer representing the shortest distance.
Adobe
March 1, 2026539
11
3,610 solved
Given a string and two characters, find the shortest distance between the two characters in the string. If either character does not exist in the string, return -1. The function should take the string as input and return an integer representing the shortest distance.
Coding interviews at Adobe focus on problem-solving approach as much as the final solution. The interviewer wants to see you break down the problem, consider edge cases, and optimize iteratively. Communication throughout the process is key.
What the Interviewer Expects
- Identify the correct data structure and algorithm for the problem
- Write clean, bug-free code with proper variable naming
- Analyze time and space complexity correctly
- Handle basic edge cases (empty input, single element)
- Communicate your thought process while coding
Key Topics to Cover
How to Approach This
- Clarify input constraints and edge cases before writing code.
- Walk through your approach verbally and confirm with the interviewer before coding.
- Start with a brute force solution, then optimize. Mention time and space complexity.
- Test your solution with examples, including edge cases like empty input or duplicates.
- Consider common patterns: sliding window, two pointers, hash map, BFS/DFS, dynamic programming.
Possible Follow-up Questions
- Can you optimize the space complexity of your solution?
- Can you solve this in a single pass?
- How would you parallelize this solution?
- What if the input doesn't fit in memory?
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Problem Analysis
To solve the problem of finding the shortest distance between two characters in a string, we can utilize a single-pass linear scan approach. This is effective because we need to check the entire s...
Approach
- Initialize two variables to store the last seen indices of the two characters, let's call them
last_index_aandlast_index_b, and set them to -1 (indicating they haven't been found yet). - Ini...
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