Leetcode 33. Search in Rotated Sorted Array

原题：

Suppose an array sorted in ascending order is rotated at some pivot unknown to you beforehand.

(i.e., [0,1,2,4,5,6,7] might become [4,5,6,7,0,1,2]).

You are given a target value to search. If found in the array return its index, otherwise return -1.

You may assume no duplicate exists in the array.

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

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

题目大意是：在O(log n)时间内在循环有序列表中寻找一个数，并返回它的位置。若不存在，则返回-1。

很明显，该问题需要用到二分查找，虽然该列表并不是有序的，但我们可以寻找规律，以进行二分查找，我们知道二分查找中有三个位置变量：first、mid和last。然后我们进行分类讨论：

1. 若nums[mid]>nums[first]，则证明从first到mid都是递增的。此时，若target<nums[mid]且target>nums[first]，则证明target在mid的左侧，其余情况下target在mid的右侧。
2. 若nums[mid]<=nums[first]，则证明从first到mid之间有最小值。此时，若target>nums[mid]且target<nums[first]，则证明target在mid的右侧，其余情况下在mid的左侧。
   

至此，算法已构建完毕，代码写起来就简单多了：

class Solution:
    def search(self, nums, target):
        """
        :type nums: List[int]
        :type target: int
        :rtype: int
        """
        n = len(nums)
        first = 0
        last = n-1
        if n == 0:
            return -1
        while(first < last):
            mid = int((first + last) / 2)
            if nums[first] <= nums[mid]:
                if target == nums[mid]:
                    return mid
                elif target == nums[first]:
                    return first
                elif target < nums[mid] and target > nums[first]:
                    last = mid
                else:
                    first = mid+1
            else:
                if target > nums[mid] and target < nums[first]:
                    first = mid+1
                elif target == nums[mid]:
                    return mid
                elif target == nums[first]:
                    return first
                else:
                    last = mid
        if nums[first] == target:
            return first
        else:
            return -1