Leetcode之Search for a Range

Question：

Given a sorted array of integers, 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].

» Solve this problem

分析：

两次二分法，即可达到log(n)的要求，但是这里的二分法有些区别。二分判断只设计两个条件：1.大于/小于 2.else。举例而言，如果求左边的起始位置，那么 target>A[mid]--> left=mid+1，这样一来，左边的指针除非到左后跳出循环的一步，否则不能指向target，那么最终，left一定指向第一个target起始值，否则array里不存在target。右起始位置同理。

Code：

public class Solution {
    public int[] searchRange(int[] A, int target) {
        // Start typing your Java solution below
        // DO NOT write main() function
        int left = 0, right = A.length-1;
        int[] res = {-1, -1};
        if(A==null || A.length==0) return res;
        while(left <= right){
            int mid = (left+right)/2;
            if(target > A[mid]) left = mid+1;
            else right = mid-1;
        }
        if(left<0 || left>=A.length || A[left]!=target) return res;
        res[0] = left;
        right = A.length-1;
        while(left <= right){
            int mid = (left+right)/2;
            if(target < A[mid]) right = mid-1;
            else left = mid+1;
        }
        res[1] = right;
        return res;
    }
}

小结：

两次二分法的巧妙运用，很适合钻研透彻以深入了解二分法。