1984. Minimum Difference Between Highest and Lowest of K Scores

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:
    def minimumDifference(self, nums: List[int], k: int) -> int:
        if len(nums)==k:
            return max(nums)-min(nums)
        nums.sort()
        print(nums)
        lp=0
        rp=lp+k-1
        tmin=nums[-1]
        while rp<len(nums):
            cmin=nums[rp]-nums[lp]
            if cmin<tmin:
                tmin=cmin
            lp+=1
            rp+=1
        return tmin