Python Two Sum - Brute Force Approach

Question

I'm new to Python and have just started to try out LeetCode to build my chops. On this classic question my code misses a test case.

The problem is as follows:

Given an array of integers, return indices of the two numbers such that they add up to a specific target.

You may assume that each input would have exactly one solution, and you may not use the same element twice.

Example:

Given nums = [2, 7, 11, 15], target = 9,

Because nums[0] + nums[1] = 2 + 7 = 9, return [0, 1].

I miss on test case [3,2,4] with the target number of 6, which should return the indices of [1,2], but hit on test case [1,5,7] with the target number of 6 (which of course returns indices [0,1]), so it appears that something is wrong in my while loop, but I'm not quite sure what.

class Solution:
    def twoSum(self, nums, target):
        x = 0
        y = len(nums) - 1
        while x < y:
            if nums[x] + nums[y] == target:
                return (x, y)
            if nums[x] + nums[y] < target:
                x += 1
            else:
                y -= 1
        self.x = x
        self.y = y
        self.array = array       
        return None

test_case = Solution()    
array = [1, 5, 7]
print(test_case.twoSum(array, 6))

Output returns null on test case [3,2,4] with target 6, so indices 1 and 2 aren't even being summarized, could I be assigning y wrong?

Answer 1

A brute force solution is to double nest a loop over the list where the inner loop only looks at index greater than what the outer loop is currently on.

class Solution:
    def twoSum(self, nums, target):
        for i, a in enumerate(nums, start=0):
            for j, b in enumerate(nums[i+1:], start=0):
                if a+b==target:
                    return [i, j+i+1]

test_case = Solution()
array = [3, 2, 4]
print(test_case.twoSum(array, 6))

array = [1, 5, 7]
print(test_case.twoSum(array, 6))

array = [2, 7, 11, 15]
print(test_case.twoSum(array, 9))

Output:

[1, 2]
[0, 1]
[0, 1]