Shortest Word Distance II Python Solution

lcpy gen -n 244   # by problem number
lcpy gen -s shortest_word_distance_ii   # by problem name

Input
["WordDistance", "shortest", "shortest"]
[[["practice", "makes", "perfect", "coding", "makes"]], ["coding", "practice"], ["makes", "coding"]]
Output
[null, 3, 1]

Explanation
WordDistance wordDistance = new WordDistance(["practice", "makes", "perfect", "coding", "makes"]);
wordDistance.shortest("coding", "practice"); // return 3
wordDistance.shortest("makes", "coding");  // return 1

from collections import defaultdict


class WordDistance:
    # Time: O(n) for __init__, O(k + m) per shortest call
    # Space: O(n)
    def __init__(self, words_dict: list[str]) -> None:
        self.indices: defaultdict[str, list[int]] = defaultdict(list)
        for i, word in enumerate(words_dict):
            self.indices[word].append(i)

    def shortest(self, word1: str, word2: str) -> int:
        positions1 = self.indices[word1]
        positions2 = self.indices[word2]
        shortest = 10**9
        i = 0
        j = 0
        while i < len(positions1) and j < len(positions2):
            shortest = min(shortest, abs(positions1[i] - positions2[j]))
            if positions1[i] <= positions2[j]:
                i += 1
            else:
                j += 1
        return shortest