STL: lower_bound(·) and upper_bound(·)

Lower Bound

This is a problem I came across in Google interview, and I was caught off guard. The interviewer asked me to implement the lower_bound(·) function in STL. Here is the code:

int lower_bound(int *array, int size, int key)
{
    int first = 0, middle;
    int half, len;
    len = size;

    while(len > 0) {
        half = len >> 1;
        middle = first + half;
        if(array[middle] < key) {     
            first = middle + 1;          
            len = len-half-1;       
        }
        else
            len = half;         
    }
    return first;
}

Upper Bound

Similarly we have:

int upper_bound(int *array, int size, int key)
{
    int first = 0, len = size-1;
    int half, middle;

    while(len > 0){
        half = len >> 1;
        middle = first + half;
        if(array[middle] > key)     
            len = half;
        else{
            first = middle + 1;    
            len = len - half - 1;
        }
    }
    return first;
}