Re: binary search with reference to append
- Posted by jimcbrown (admin) Jun 13, 2014
- 1923 views
jaygade said...
I think I finally got the logic right.
For the usage case that you've written this for, it looks good.
However, binary_search() has an extra requirement:
-- # a negative integer, ##-i##, with ##i## between adjusted start and end -- points. This means that ##needle## is not in the searched slice of -- ##haystack##, but would be at index ##i## if it were there. -- # a negative integer ##-i## with ##i## out of the searched range. This -- means than ##needle##might be either below the start point if ##i## -- is below the start point, or above the end point if ##i## is.
So it might return, say, -5, if the needle is not in the haystack but index 5 is where the needle should be sorted into.
I guess, sometimes you just can't have it all.