> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://maksimdan.gitbook.io/interview-practice-problems/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://maksimdan.gitbook.io/interview-practice-problems/leetcode_sessions/245-shortest-word-distance-iii.md).

# 245 Shortest Word Distance III

This is a **follow up** of [Shortest Word Distance](https://leetcode.com/problems/shortest-word-distance). The only difference is now word1 could be the same as word2.

Given a list of words and two words word1 and word2, return the shortest distance between these two words in the list.

word1 and word2 may be the same and they represent two individual words in the list.

For example,\
Assume that words =`["practice", "makes", "perfect", "coding", "makes"]`.

Given word1=`“makes”`,word2=`“coding”`, return 1.\
Given word1=`"makes"`,word2=`"makes"`, return 3.

**Note:**\
You may assume word1 and word2 are both in the list.

**The Idea:** Same as the first except we account for whether the indices are the same (an indication that the words are also the same).

**Complexity:** O(2n) time and O(n) space

```python
from collections import defaultdict
import sys


class Solution:
    def shortestWordDistance(self, words, word1, word2):
        """
        :type words: List[str]
        :type word1: str
        :type word2: str
        :rtype: int
        """
        self.d = defaultdict(list)
        for i, word in enumerate(words):
            self.d[word].append(i)

        dist = sys.maxsize
        for loc1 in self.d[word1]:
            for loc2 in self.d[word2]:
                if loc1 != loc2:
                    dist = min(dist, abs(loc1 - loc2))
        return dist
```


---

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