[mplspm]: In a sorted list

[John J. Trammell]

On Thu, Mar 21, 2002 at 10:07:22PM -0600, Josh Aas wrote:
>     If I have an alphabetically sorted array of strings (containing up to 2
> million strings), and I want to find out if any strings in that array equal
> a certain string (yes or no, not how many), what is the fastest way to do
> that search? This seems basic to me, I just can't come up with the answer
> and I have an hour to do so. Thanks a lot!

Binary search.  Compare your test string with [n/2]; if it's
equal you're done, otherwise your new search range is (0,[n/2])
or ([n/2,n).  Rinse, repeat.



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