findMinDistance.js

function findMinDistance(sentence, word1, word2) {
  const sentenceArr = sentence.split(' ');

  const wordDict = {};
  wordDict[word1] = word2;
  wordDict[word2] = word1;

  let distanceArr = [];
  let distanceCounter = 0;
  let lastFoundKeyword = '';

  for (let i = 0; i < sentenceArr.length; i++) {
    let currentWord = sentenceArr[i];

    if (lastFoundKeyword) {
      distanceCounter++;
    }

    if (currentWord === word1 || currentWord === word2) {
      if (currentWord === lastFoundKeyword) {
        distanceCounter = 0;
      }

      if (lastFoundKeyword && wordDict[lastFoundKeyword] === currentWord) {
        distanceArr.push(distanceCounter);
        distanceCounter = 0;
      }

      lastFoundKeyword = currentWord;
    }
  }

  const sortedDistanceArr = distanceArr.sort();
  const minDistance = sortedDistanceArr[0];

  return minDistance;
}

const sentencesToTest = [
  'the quick brown quick fox brown the jumped over the dog lazy quick the brown dog lazy fox',
  'the quick brown the',
  'apple banana orange grape lemon watermelon tomato potato corn apple', // I forgot I made apple the last word and I spent 20 minutes trying to debug why this test was returning 4 instead of 5 when it should have been 4 all along. RIP.
  'a b c b a c a b a ',
  'arkansas alabama georgia california california alaska california arizona arkansas california alabama california colorado wyoming arizona virginia deleware georgia connecticut arizona california colorado virginia arkansas',
  'd a b b b d b l b b b a b b d b l a',
];

const wordPairsToTest = [
  ['fox', 'lazy'],
  ['the', 'brown'],
  ['apple', 'watermelon'],
  ['a', 'c'],
  ['california', 'arkansas'],
  ['d', 'a'],
];

const testIndex = 5;

console.log(
  findMinDistance(
    sentencesToTest[testIndex],
    wordPairsToTest[testIndex][0],
    wordPairsToTest[testIndex][1],
  ),
);