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LeetCode 1631, Medium. Topics: Array, Binary Search, Depth-First Search, Breadth-First Search, Union Find, Heap (Priority Queue), Matrix. View on LeetCode. Generate this problem as a practice environment: tested reference solution, 15 parametrized pytest cases, and a playground notebook:

Problem

You are a hiker preparing for an upcoming hike. You are given heights, a 2D array of size rows x columns, where heights[row][col] represents the height of cell (row, col). You are situated in the top-left cell, (0, 0), and you hope to travel to the bottom-right cell, (rows-1, columns-1) (i.e., 0-indexed). You can move up, down, left, or right, and you wish to find a route that requires the minimum effort. A route’s effort is the maximum absolute difference in heights between two consecutive cells of the route. Return the minimum effort required to travel from the top-left cell to the bottom-right cell.

Examples

Example 1
Example 2
Example 3

Constraints

  • rows == heights.length
  • columns == heights[i].length
  • 1 <= rows, columns <= 100
  • 1 <= heights[i][j] <= 10^6

Solution

Reference implementation from solution.py on GitHub, full suite in test_solution.py:

Complexity

Tags

NeetCode 250, NeetCode All.
Last modified on August 25, 2026