LeetCode-in-Java

2567. Minimum Score by Changing Two Elements

Medium

You are given a 0-indexed integer array nums.

• The low score of nums is the minimum value of |nums[i] - nums[j]| over all 0 <= i < j < nums.length.
• The high score of nums is the maximum value of |nums[i] - nums[j]| over all 0 <= i < j < nums.length.
• The score of nums is the sum of the high and low scores of nums.

To minimize the score of nums, we can change the value of at most two elements of nums.

Return _the minimum possible score after changing the value of at most two elements o_f nums.

Note that |x| denotes the absolute value of x.

Example 1:

Input: nums = [1,4,3]

Output: 0

Explanation: Change value of nums[1] and nums[2] to 1 so that nums becomes [1,1,1]. Now, the value of |nums[i] - nums[j]| is always equal to 0, so we return 0 + 0 = 0.

Example 2:

Input: nums = [1,4,7,8,5]

Output: 3

Explanation: Change nums[0] and nums[1] to be 6. Now nums becomes [6,6,7,8,5].

Our low score is achieved when i = 0 and j = 1, in which case

nums[i] - nums[j]

=

6 - 6

= 0.

Our high score is achieved when i = 3 and j = 4, in which case

nums[i] - nums[j]

=

8 - 5

= 3.

The sum of our high and low score is 3, which we can prove to be minimal.

Constraints:

• 3 <= nums.length <= 105
• 1 <= nums[i] <= 109

Solution

import java.util.Arrays;

public class Solution {
    public int minimizeSum(int[] nums) {
        Arrays.sort(nums);
        int n = nums.length - 1;
        int d1 = (nums[n] - nums[2]);
        int d2 = (nums[n - 2] - nums[0]);
        int d3 = (nums[n - 1] - nums[1]);
        return Math.min(d1, Math.min(d2, d3));
    }
}

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