Is Minimum Time Difference easy or hard?

Minimum Time Difference is typically categorized as a Medium problem. The challenge comes from handling the circular 24‑hour clock and recognizing that the smallest difference may occur across midnight.

Minimum Time Difference Python/Java solution

In Python or Java, convert each time string using split(':') and compute total minutes as hour * 60 + minute. Either store these values in a list and sort them, or mark them in a 1440‑length boolean array for a linear‑time solution.

How to solve Minimum Time Difference in O(n)?

Use a boolean array of size 1440 representing every minute in a day. Convert each time string to its minute index and mark it in the array. Then scan the array to find the smallest gap between marked minutes and handle the wrap‑around difference between the last and first times.

What is the best approach for Minimum Time Difference?

The most common solution sorts all time points after converting them to minutes. Once sorted, compare adjacent times and also check the circular difference between the last and first values. This approach runs in O(n log n) time and is widely expected in coding interviews.

Is Minimum Time Difference asked at Google/Amazon/Meta?

Minimum Time Difference is a classic time‑conversion and sorting problem that appears in interview preparation sets for companies like Amazon and Google. It tests understanding of string parsing, array processing, and edge cases involving circular time ranges.

What data structure is used in Minimum Time Difference?

Common implementations use arrays to store minute values after converting the HH:MM strings. The optimized approach uses a boolean array of size 1440 to track whether a particular minute appears, avoiding the need for sorting.

What is the time complexity of Minimum Time Difference?

The standard sorting solution runs in O(n log n) time because the time points must be ordered before comparing neighbors. A more optimized method uses a fixed boolean array of 1440 minutes and runs in O(n) time with constant space.

Description Solution Video 15:01

539. Minimum Time Difference

Medium62.7% acceptance9 companies

Given a list of 24-hour clock time points in "HH:MM" format, return the minimum minutes difference between any two time-points in the list.

Example 1:

Input: timePoints = ["23:59","00:00"]
Output: 1

Example 2:

Input: timePoints = ["00:00","23:59","00:00"]
Output: 0

Constraints:

2 <= timePoints.length <= 2 * 10⁴
timePoints[i] is in the format "HH:MM".

Asked at 9 companies

Palantir Visa Capital One

Google Zoho Microsoft Meta Bloomberg Amazon

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15:01

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539. Minimum Time Difference

Asked at 9 companies

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