Find Minimum Difference Between Two Elements from Two Lists in Python

Suppose we have two lists L1 and L2, we have to find the smallest difference between a number from L1 and a number from L2.

So, if the input is like L1 = [2, 7, 4], L2 = [16, 10, 11], then the output will be 3, as the smallest difference is 10 - 7 = 3.

To solve this, we will follow these steps −

• sort the list L1 and sort the list L2
• ans := infinity
• i := 0, j := 0
• while i < size of L1 and j < size of L2, do
  • ans := minimum of ans and |L1[i] - L2[j]|
  • if L1[i] < L2[j], then
    • i := i + 1
  • otherwise,
    • j := j + 1
• return ans

Let us see the following implementation to get better understanding −

Example

 Live Demo

class Solution:
   def solve(self, L1, L2):
      L1.sort()
      L2.sort()
      ans = float("inf")
      i = j = 0
      while i < len(L1) and j < len(L2):
         ans = min(ans, abs(L1[i] - L2[j]))
         if L1[i] < L2[j]:
            i += 1
         else:
            j += 1
      return ans
ob = Solution()
L1 = [2, 7, 4] L2 = [16, 10, 11]
print(ob.solve(L1, L2))

Input

[2, 7, 4], [16, 10, 11]

Output

3