Search in Rotated Sorted Array

Problem

There is an integer array nums sorted in ascending order (with distinct values).

Prior to being passed to your function, nums is possibly rotated at an unknown pivot index k (1 <= k < nums.length) such that the resulting array is [nums[k], nums[k+1], …, nums[n-1], nums[0], nums[1], …, nums[k-1]] (0-indexed). For example, [0,1,2,4,5,6,7] might be rotated at pivot index 3 and become [4,5,6,7,0,1,2].

Given the array nums after the possible rotation and an integer target, return the index of target if it is in nums, or -1 if it is not in nums.

You must write an algorithm with O(log n) runtime complexity.

Example 1:

Input: nums = [4,5,6,7,0,1,2], target = 0
Output: 4

Example 2:

Input: nums = [4,5,6,7,0,1,2], target = 3
Output: -1

Example 3:

Input: nums = [1], target = 0
Output: -1

Constraints:

  • 1 <= nums.length <= 5000
  • -104 <= nums[i] <= 104
  • All values of nums are unique.
  • nums is an ascending array that is possibly rotated.
  • -104 <= target <= 104

Solution

class Solution {
    public int search(int[] nums, int target) {
        var left = 0;
        var right = nums.length;
        var middle = 0;

        while (left <= right) {
            middle = left + (right - left) / 2;
            if (nums[middle] <= nums[nums.length - 1]) {
                right = middle - 1;
            } else {
                left = middle + 1;
            }
        }

        var pivot = left;

        // now do a modified binary search
        left = pivot;
        right = left + nums.length - 1;

        while (left <= right) {
            middle = left + (right - left) / 2;
            var idx = middle % nums.length;
            var n = nums[idx];
            if (n == target) {
                return idx;
            } else if (n < target)  {
                left = middle + 1;
            } else {
                right = middle - 1;
            }
        }

        return -1;
    }
}

Recent posts from blogs that I like

Bookbear Local 9/20/26

odds and ends

via bookbear express

Painting la Manche: le Havre to Ouessant

Paintings by Paul Signac, Claude Monet, Félix Vallotton, Millet, John Singer Sargent, Maurice Denis, and others.

via The Eclectic Light Company

System One models like Jev can train their own replacements

“System One” models like Jev are fast general classifiers. Classifiers have existed since 1958, but they have to be trained for specific tasks: if you build a classifier to identify images of dogs, it can’t be used to tell you if a streetlight is red, or if a letter is urgent. Like a LLM, Jev can be...

via Sean Goedecke