1984. Minimum Difference Between Highest and Lowest of K Scores | LeetCode Solution

 1984. Minimum Difference Between Highest and Lowest of K Scores | LeetCode Solution 

You are given a 0-indexed integer array nums, where nums[i] represents the score of the ith student. You are also given an integer k.

Pick the scores of any k students from the array so that the difference between the highest and the lowest of the k scores is minimized.

Return the minimum possible difference.

 

Example 1:

Input: nums = [90], k = 1
Output: 0
Explanation: There is one way to pick score(s) of one student:
- [90]. The difference between the highest and lowest score is 90 - 90 = 0.
The minimum possible difference is 0.

Example 2:

Input: nums = [9,4,1,7], k = 2
Output: 2
Explanation: There are six ways to pick score(s) of two students:
- [9,4,1,7]. The difference between the highest and lowest score is 9 - 4 = 5.
- [9,4,1,7]. The difference between the highest and lowest score is 9 - 1 = 8.
- [9,4,1,7]. The difference between the highest and lowest score is 9 - 7 = 2.
- [9,4,1,7]. The difference between the highest and lowest score is 4 - 1 = 3.
- [9,4,1,7]. The difference between the highest and lowest score is 7 - 4 = 3.
- [9,4,1,7]. The difference between the highest and lowest score is 7 - 1 = 6.
The minimum possible difference is 2.

 

Constraints:

• 1 <= k <= nums.length <= 1000
• 0 <= nums[i] <= 105

class Solution

{

public:

    int minimumDifference(vector<int> &nums, int k)

    {

        if (k == 1 || nums.size() == 1)

            return 0;

        sort(nums.begin(), nums.end());

        int maxnum = nums[k - 1];

        int minnum = nums[0];

        int ans = maxnum - minnum;

        for (int i = k; i < nums.size(); i++)

        {

            maxnum = nums[i];

            minnum = nums[i - k + 1];

            int diff = maxnum - minnum;

            if (ans > diff)

                ans = diff;

        }

        return ans;

    }

};