Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto

Department of Computer Science

CMP 202: Computer Programming II

SEARCHING

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CONTENTS

✓ What is Searching?

✓ Types of Searching

▪ Linear Search

▪ Binary Search

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WHAT IS SEARCHING?

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SEARCHING
❖ We know that today’s computers store a lot of information.
❖ To retrieve this information proficiently we need a very efficient way of
doing it and to make sure we are retrieving the right information.

❖ Searching is a method or procedure used to find a specific item or element

within a collection of data.
❖ These methods/procedures are widely used in computer science and are
crucial for tasks like:
✓ Searching for a particular record in a database,
✓ finding an element in a sorted list, or
✓ locating a file on a computer. 4
SEARCHING (Cont)…
❖ Searching is one of the most common actions performed in regular business
applications.
❖ This involves fetching data stored in structures like Arrays, List, Map, etc.
❖ More often than not, this search operation determines the responsiveness
of the application for the end-user.
❖ There are certain ways of organizing the data that improve the search
process.
❖ That means, if we keep the data in proper order, it is easy to search for the
required element.
❖ Sorting is one of the techniques for making the elements ordered
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TYPES OF SEARCHING
❖ Here are some common types of search algorithms.
✓ Linear Search
✓ Binary Search
✓ Hashing
✓ Interpolation Search
✓ Tree-based Searching
✓ Ternary Search
✓ Jump Search
✓ Exponential Search
✓ Fibonacci Search
✓ Interpolation Search for Trees
✓ Hash-based Searching (e.g., Bloom Filter)
✓ String Searching Algorithms
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LINEAR SEARCH

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LINEAR SEARCH
✓ Linear or Sequential Search is the simplest of search algorithms.

✓ Linear Search has no pre-requisites for the state of the underlying data

structure.

✓ Linear Search involves sequential searching for an element in the given

data structure until either the element is found or the end of the structure is

reached.

✓ If the element is found, we usually just return its position in the data

structure.

✓ If not, we usually return -1

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LINEAR SEARCH (CONT)...
✓ Let the element to be searched be x.
✓ Start from the leftmost element of arr[ ] and one by one compare x with
each element of arr[ ].
✓ If x matches with an element then return that index.
✓ If x doesn’t match with any of the elements then return -1.

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LINEAR SEARCH (Example)
public static int linearSearch(int arr[], int elementToSearch) {

for (int index = 0; index < arr.length; index++) {

if (arr[index] == elementToSearch)

return index;

return -1;

}
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LINEAR SEARCH (Example)...
To test it, we'll use a simple Array of integers: Here, we are searching for “67” in the below array

89 57 91 47 95 3 27 22 67 99

With a simple helper method to print the result:

public static void print(int elementToSearch, int index) {
if (index == -1){
System.out.println(elementToSearch + " not found.");
}
else {
System.out.println(elementToSearch + " found at index: " + index);
}
}
Output ➔ 67 found at index: 8
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LINEAR SEARCH (Examples)…..
class linearSearch {
// Function for linear search
public static int search(int arr[ ], int x)
{
int n = arr.length;
// Traverse array arr[]
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
// If element found then return that index
if (arr[i] == x)
return i;
}
return -1;
}
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LINEAR SEARCH (Example)...
// Driver Code
public static void main(String args[])
{ 2 3 4 10 40
// Given arr[]
int arr[] = { 2, 3, 4, 10, 40 };
// Element to search
int x = 10;
// Function Call Output:
int result = search(arr, x);
Element is present at index 3
if (result == -1)
System.out.print("Element is not present in
array");
else
System.out.print("Element is present" + " at index
" + result);
}
} 13
APPLICATIONS OF LINEAR SEARCH
Linear search has several practical applications in computer science and beyond. Here are
some examples:

✓ Phonebook Search: Linear search can be used to search through a phonebook to find a
person’s name, given their phone number.
✓ Spell Checkers: The algorithm compares each word in the document to a dictionary of
correctly spelled words until a match is found.
✓ Finding Minimum and Maximum Values: Linear search can be used to find the minimum
and maximum values in an array or list.
✓ Searching through unsorted data: Linear search is useful for searching through unsorted
data.

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ADVANTAGES OF LINEAR SEARCH
✓ Simplicity: Linear search is a very simple algorithm to understand and
implement.
✓ Works with unsorted data: Linear search works well with unsorted data. It
does not require any pre-processing or sorting of the data before
performing the search.
✓ Low memory usage: Linear search only requires a small amount of memory
to store the index of the current element being searched.
✓ Easy to debug: Because linear search is a simple algorithm, it is easy to
debug and troubleshoot any issues that may arise.
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DISADVANTAGES OF LINEAR SEARCH
✓ Inefficient for large datasets: As the size of the dataset grows, the time
taken by linear search also increases proportionally.
✓ Limited applicability: Linear search is only suitable for datasets that are not
too large or not too complex.
✓ No early termination: Linear search does not have a mechanism to
terminate early once the target element is found.
✓ Inefficient for sorted data: When the data is already sorted, linear search is
not efficient because it needs to check each element one by one, even if
it has already passed the target element.
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BINARY SEARCH

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BINARY SEARCH
❖ Binary or Logarithmic Search is one of the most commonly used search
algorithms primarily due to its quick search time.

❖ This kind of search uses the Divide and Conquer methodology and requires
the data set to be sorted beforehand.
❖ If data is not sorted, then it to be sorted or we use Linear Search

❖ It divides the input collection into equal halves, and with each iteration
compares the target element with the element in the middle.

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BINARY SEARCH (CONT)....
❖ If the element is found, the search ends.

❖ Else, we continue looking for the element by dividing and selecting the
appropriate partition of the array, based on if the target element is
smaller or bigger than the middle element.

❖ The search terminates when the firstIndex (our pointer) goes

past lastIndex (last element), which implies we have searched the whole
array and the element is not present.

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BINARY SEARCH (CONT)....
Below are the steps:

✓ Compare x with the middle element.

✓ If x matches with middle element, we return the mid index.

✓ Else If x is greater than the mid element, then x can only lie in the right half
subarray after the mid element. So we recur for right half.

✓ Else (x is smaller) recur for the left half.

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BINARY SEARCH (Example)...
Let’s use the below array

3 11 21 29 41 54 61 78 110 127

✓ Target element is 78.

✓ Divide the array index into 2 equal halves (9/2) = 4.5 = 4

✓ Element @ index 4 is not equal to 78 but it is less than 78

✓ Therefore we element the first half of the array:

54 61 78 110 127

✓ Divide the array into 2 equal halves (4/2) = 2

✓ Element @ index 2 is equal to 78

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BINARY SEARCH (Example)...
public static int binarySearch(int arr[], int firstElement, int lastElement,
int elementToSearch) {

// termination condition

if (lastElement >= firstElement) {

int mid = firstElement + (lastElement - firstElement) / 2;

// if the middle element is our goal element, return its index

if (arr[mid] == elementToSearch)

return mid;

3 22 27 47 57 67 89 91 95 99
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BINARY SEARCH (Example)...
// if the middle element is bigger than the goal element

if (arr[mid] > elementToSearch)

return binarySearch(arr, firstElement, mid - 1, elementToSearch);

// else, recursively call the method with narrowed data

return binarySearch(arr, mid + 1, lastElement, elementToSearch);

return -1;
Output:
} 67 found at index: 5
We can use this algorithm like this:

int index = binarySearch(new int[]{3, 22, 27, 47, 57, 67, 89, 91, 95, 99}
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ADVANTAGES OF BINARY SEARCH

✓ Since it follows the technique to eliminate half of the array elements, it is

more efficient as compared to linear search for large data.

✓ Better time complexity and thus takes less compilation time.

✓ An improvement over linear search as it breaks the array down in half

rather than sequentially traversing through the array elements.

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DISADVANTAGES OF BINARY SEARCH

✓ Binary Search algorithm could only be implemented over a sorted array.

✓ Small unsorted arrays would take considerate time in sorting and then
searching the desired element.

✓ So, binary search is not preferred in such cases.

✓ It has poor locality of reference compared to linear search algorithm

when comes to in-memory searching for short intervals.

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APPLICATIONS OF BINARY SEARCH
❖ It is the most commonly used search algorithm in most of the libraries for searching.

❖ The Binary Search tree is used by many data structures as well which store sorted data.

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