LeetCode Entry

2515. Shortest Distance to Target String in a Circular Array

15.04.2026 easy 2026 kotlin rust

Distance to target

2515. Shortest Distance to Target String in a Circular Array easy substack youtube

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Problem TLDR

Distance to target #easy

Intuition

• (s+dist)%n forward
• (s-dist)%n backward

Approach

• don’t forget s
• Kotlin has .mod that handles sign, indexOfFirst vs firstOrNull
• Rust: find

Complexity

• Time complexity: \(O(n)\)

• Space complexity: \(O(1)\)

Code

// 14ms
    fun closestTarget(w: Array<String>, t: String, s: Int) =
    w.indices.indexOfFirst { w[(s + it)%w.size]==t || w[(s-it).mod(w.size)]==t }

// 0ms
    pub fn closest_target(w: Vec<String>, t: String, s: i32) -> i32 {
        let n = w.len() as i32;
        (0..n).find(|i| w[((s + i) % n) as usize] == t || w[((s - i + n) % n) as usize] == t).unwrap_or(-1)
    }