Find Minimum in Rotated Sorted Array

Find Minimum in Rotated Sorted Array

Suppose a sorted array 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).
Find the minimum element.
You may assume no duplicate exists in the array.

此题是二分查找的变形，关键还是在于理解二分查找的思想，找到位置变化的条件。
开始low和high分别指向数组的首尾，容易得出当nums[low] < nums[high]时，nums[low]就是最小数。

三种情况：

1. nums[mid] = 6, nums[mid] > nums[low], 此时最小数在右侧

   4 5 6 0 1

2. nums[mid] = 1, nums[mid] < nums[low],此时最小数在左侧

   4 0 1 2 3

3. nums[mid] = 0, nums[mid] < nums[low],此时nums[mid]就是最小数

   4 5 0 1 2

于是得出:

int mid = (low + high) / 2;
if (nums[mid] < nums[low]) {
    high = mid - 1;
} else {
    low = mid + 1;
}

但是第三种情况例外，一种方式是特殊处理，更好的是改变比较顺序，并且nums[low]是最终结果，可得：

if (nums[mid] >= nums[low]) {
    low = mid + 1;
} else {
    high = mid;
}

所有代码如下：

int findMin(vector<int>& nums) {
    int low = 0;
    int high = nums.size() - 1;
    while (low < high) {
        if (nums[low] < nums[high]) {
            break;
        }
        int mid = (low + high) / 2;
        if (nums[mid] >= nums[low]) {
            low = mid + 1;
        } else {
            high = mid;
        }
    }
    return nums[low];
}