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

itertools to the rescue?

from itertools import combinations

def closest_elements(iterable, K):
    N = set(iterable)
    assert(2 <= K <= len(N) <= 10**5)

    combs = lambda it, k: combinations(it, k)
    _abs = lambda it: abs(it[0] - it[1])
    d = {}
    v = 0

    for x in combs(N, K):
        for y in combs(x, 2):
            v += _abs(y)

        d[x] = v
        v = 0

    return min(d, key=d.get)

>>> a = [10,100,300,200,1000,20,30]
>>> b = [1,2,3,4,10,20,30,40,100,200]
>>> print closest_elements(a, 3); closest_elements(b, 4)
(10, 20, 30) (1, 2, 3, 4)