Find subset with K elements that are closest to eachother

Question

Given an array of integers size N, how can you efficiently find a subset of size K with elements that are closest to each other?

Le

Answer 1

try the following:

N = input()
K = input()
assert 2 <= N <= 10**5
assert 2 <= K <= N
a = some_unsorted_list
a.sort()

cur_diff = sum([abs(a[i] - a[i + 1]) for i in range(K - 1)])
min_diff = cur_diff
min_last_idx = K - 1
for last_idx in range(K,N):
    cur_diff = cur_diff - \
               abs(a[last_idx - K - 1] - a[last_idx - K] + \
               abs(a[last_idx] - a[last_idx - 1])
    if min_diff > cur_diff:
        min_diff = cur_diff
        min_last_idx = last_idx

From the min_last_idx, you can calculate the min_first_idx. I use range to preserve the order of idx. If this is python 2.7, it will take linearly more RAM. This is the same algorithm that you use, but slightly more efficient (smaller constant in complexity), as it does less then summing all.