Question

We have an array of heights, representing the altitude along a walking trail. Given start/end indexes into the array, return the number of “big” steps for a walk starting at the start index and ending at the end index. We’ll say that step is big if it is 5 or more up or down. The start and end index will both be valid indexes into the array with start <= end.

bigHeights({5, 3, 6, 7, 2}, 2, 4) → 1      
bigHeights({5, 3, 6, 7, 2}, 0, 1) → 0     
bigHeights({5, 3, 6, 7, 2}, 0, 4) → 1     

Im stuck with this problem and unable to proceed further
The function signature is as below::
public int bigHeights(int[] heights, int start, int end){ }

Answer 1

You just have to go through the heights array, compute the absolute value of differences, and count:

public int bigHeights(int[] heights, int start, int end){ 
    int bigsteps = 0;
    for (int i = start + 1; i <= end; i++) {
        if (Math.abs(heights[i] - heights[i - 1]) >= 5)
            bigsteps++;
    }
    return bigsteps;
}