Cracking The Coding Interview 9.6

//原文：
//
//	Given a sorted array of strings which is interspersed with empty strings, write a method to find the location of a given string.
//
//Example: find “ball” in [“at”, “”, “”, “”, “ball”, “”, “”, “car”, “”,“”, “dad”, “”, “”] will return 4
//
//Example: find “ballcar” in [“at”, “”, “”, “”, “”, “ball”, “car”, “”, “”, “dad”, “”, “”] will return -1

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;
int search(string a[],int begin, int end, string key)
{
	while(begin < end)
	{
		int mid = (begin + end)/2;
		while(a[mid] =="" && mid<= end)
		{
			mid++;
		}

		if (a[mid] == key)
		{
			return mid;
		}
		if (key > a[mid])
		{
			begin = mid +1;
		}
		else
		{
			end = mid -1;
		}
	}
	return -1;
}

int main()
{
	string a[13] = {"at","", "","","ball","","","car","","","dad","",""};
	cout<<search(a,0,12,"ball")<<endl;
	return 0;
}