leetcode(34). Search for a Range

problem

Given an array of integers sorted in ascending order, find the
starting and ending position of a given target value.

Your algorithm’s runtime complexity must be in the order of O(log n).

If the target is not found in the array, return [-1, -1].

For example, Given [5, 7, 7, 8, 8, 10] and target value 8, return [3,
4].

分析

这个问题可以理解为二分查找的进阶版，要求查找到最小和最大的index，也就是说在查找到target之后还要对左侧和右侧的序列继续查找是否还有元素等于target。

def biSearch(arr,start,end,hkey):
    #二分查找
    if start > end:
        return -1
    mid = start + (end - start) // 2
    if arr[mid] > hkey:
        return biSearch(arr, start, mid - 1, hkey)
    if arr[mid] < hkey:
        return biSearch(arr, mid + 1, end, hkey)
    return mid

def findMin(arr, start, end, hkey):
    #左侧的index
    ans = biSearch(arr, start, end, hkey)
    while 1:
        tmp = biSearch(arr, start, ans-1, hkey)
        if tmp == -1:
            break
        else:
            ans = tmp

    return ans

def findMax(arr, start, end, hkey):
    #右侧的index
    ans = biSearch(arr, start, end, hkey)
    while 1:
        tmp = biSearch(arr, ans+1, end, hkey)
        if tmp == -1:
            break
        else:
            ans = tmp

    return ans

class Solution(object):
    def searchRange(self, nums, target):
        """
        :type nums: List[int]
        :type target: int
        :rtype: List[int]
        """
        n = len(nums)
        return [findMin(nums, 0, n-1, target), findMax(nums, 0, n-1, target)]

solution

下面介绍一下在leetcode中的discussion中看到的一种简洁的解法，这种解法是直接在二分查找上做修改，只举查找最小的index为例，代码如下：

def findMin1(nums, target):
    i = 0
    j = len(nums)-1

    while i < j:
        mid = (i+j)//2
        #一定在右侧才有nums[x]==target
        if nums[mid] < target:
            i = mid+1
        #nums[mid] >= target，最小的index一定在左侧
        else:
            j = mid-1
    #在退出while循环之前j-i=1，那么分析if-else两种情况，易知如果
    #存在与target相等的元素一定在i
    if nums[i] == target:
        return i
    else:
        return -1