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Exactly, this just compares 'neighbors' i.e. numbers at consecutive indices (i, i+1)...that's a set of O(n) whereas the set of all possible pairs (given by, for example, set([i, i for i in range(n)]).symmetric_difference(itertools.product(a, a)) is O(n^2)
Note that the array was sorted beforehand, so that considering differences of consecutive elements is all we need to check to find the minimum difference.
No point in checking the difference between i and i+2 if we know the difference between i and i+1 is definitely less.
Minimum Absolute Difference in an Array
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Exactly, this just compares 'neighbors' i.e. numbers at consecutive indices (i, i+1)...that's a set of O(n) whereas the set of all possible pairs (given by, for example, set([i, i for i in range(n)]).symmetric_difference(itertools.product(a, a)) is O(n^2)
Note that the array was sorted beforehand, so that considering differences of consecutive elements is all we need to check to find the minimum difference. No point in checking the difference between i and i+2 if we know the difference between i and i+1 is definitely less.