# Program to find three unique elements from list whose sum is closest to k Python

PythonServer Side ProgrammingProgramming

Suppose we have a list of numbers called nums and another value k, we have to find three unique entries in nums (a, b, c) such that |a + b + c − k| is minimized and return the absolute difference.

So, if the input is like nums = [2, 5, 25, 6] k = 14, then the output will be 1 as if we take [2, 5, 6] will get us closest to 14 and the absolute difference is |13 − 14| = 1.

To solve this, we will follow these steps −

• sort the list nums

• ans := 1^9

• for i in range 0 to size of nums, do

• j := i + 1

• k := size of nums − 1

• while j < k, do

• s := nums[i] + nums[j] + nums[k]

• if s <= target, then

• ans := minimum of ans and target − s

• j := j + 1

• otherwise,

• ans := minimum of ans and s − target

• k := k − 1

• return ans

Let us see the following implementation to get better understanding −

## Example

Live Demo

class Solution:
def solve(self, nums, target):
nums.sort()
ans = 1e9
for i in range(len(nums)):
j = i + 1
k = len(nums) − 1
while j < k:
s = nums[i] + nums[j] + nums[k]
if s <= target:
ans = min(ans, target - s)
j += 1
else:
ans = min(ans, s - target)
k −= 1
return ans
ob1 = Solution()
nums = [2, 5, 25, 6]
k = 14
print(ob1.solve(nums, k))

## Input

[2, 5, 25, 6], 14

## Output

1
Published on 21-Oct-2020 11:42:20