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Program to find minimum difference between two elements from two lists in Python


Suppose we have two lists L1 and L2, we have to find the smallest difference between a number from L1 and a number from L2.

So, if the input is like L1 = [2, 7, 4], L2 = [16, 10, 11], then the output will be 3, as the smallest difference is 10 - 7 = 3.

To solve this, we will follow these steps −

  • sort the list L1 and sort the list L2
  • ans := infinity
  • i := 0, j := 0
  • while i < size of L1 and j < size of L2, do
    • ans := minimum of ans and |L1[i] - L2[j]|
    • if L1[i] < L2[j], then
      • i := i + 1
    • otherwise,
      • j := j + 1
  • return ans

Let us see the following implementation to get better understanding −

Example

class Solution:
   def solve(self, L1, L2):
      L1.sort()
      L2.sort()
      ans = float("inf")
      i = j = 0
      while i < len(L1) and j < len(L2):
         ans = min(ans, abs(L1[i] - L2[j]))
         if L1[i] < L2[j]:
            i += 1
         else:
            j += 1
      return ans
ob = Solution()
L1 = [2, 7, 4] L2 = [16, 10, 11]
print(ob.solve(L1, L2))

Input

[2, 7, 4], [16, 10, 11]

Output

3