Binary search for Arrays of strings

[roopa chakra]

Hi members,

I have two String Arrays: LinArray[]which has 10000 five lettered words
searchArray[] which has 1000 five lettered words

I have to perform a binary search to search 1000 elements in LinArray[].
I don't want to use built in Binary search method.

I know how to perform Binary search on primitives but not on strings.

Could anyone help me out? Thanks.

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

You "don't want to" use Arrays.binarySearch? Why not? Is this a homework assignment?

[roopa chakra]

Yes it is a home work Assignment.

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

OK, then since you know how to do binary search in an array of numbers, give it a try and show us what you have when you get stuck! It's really the same code. I'll give you a big hint, though: look at the compareTo() method in the String class.

P.S. Binary search is easy to understand, but surprisingly hard to get right. In the real world, you'd always want to use the API method.

[roopa chakra]

Here is my code.
I have taken small example
String lenearArr[]={"tom","brad","bread","lusy");
String searchArr[]={"lusy","brad"};


String midValue;
int mid;
int first=0;
int last=lenearArr.length;
for(int i=0;i<searchArr.length;i++)
{
while(first<last)
{
mid=(first+last)/2;
midValue=lenearArr[mid];
if(searchArr[i].equals(midValue))
{
System.out.println("the element"+searchArr[i]+" found "+mid);
break;
}

int cmp=(searchArr[i].compareTo(midValue));

if(cmp<0)
last=mid;

else
first=mid+1;
}
}

Could you tell me where I am wrong

[marc weber]

A binary search requires sorted data. Otherwise, you have no way of knowing whether your search element is "above" or "below" a midpoint element.

[roopa chakra]

Thanks.I got the solution.