1848. Minimum Distance to the Target Element

https://leetcode.com/problems/minimum-distance-to-the-target-element

Description

Given an integer array nums (0-indexed) and two integers target and start, find an index i such that nums[i] == target and abs(i - start) is minimized. Note that abs(x) is the absolute value of x.

Return abs(i - start).

It is guaranteed that target exists in nums.

Example 1:

**Input:** nums = [1,2,3,4,5], target = 5, start = 3
**Output:** 1
**Explanation:** nums[4] = 5 is the only value equal to target, so the answer is abs(4 - 3) = 1.

Example 2:

**Input:** nums = [1], target = 1, start = 0
**Output:** 0
**Explanation:** nums[0] = 1 is the only value equal to target, so the answer is abs(0 - 0) = 0.

Example 3:

**Input:** nums = [1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1], target = 1, start = 0
**Output:** 0
**Explanation:** Every value of nums is 1, but nums[0] minimizes abs(i - start), which is abs(0 - 0) = 0.

Constraints:

• 1 <= nums.length <= 1000

• 1 <= nums[i] <= 104

• 0 <= start < nums.length

• target is in nums.

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