Classical Binary Search

Find any position of a target number in a sorted array. Return -1 if target does not exist.

Example

Example 1:

Input: nums = [1,2,2,4,5,5], target = 2
Output: 1 or 2

Example 2:

Input: nums = [1,2,2,4,5,5], target = 6
Output: -1

Challenge

O(logn) time

思路：经典算法，按照九章的模板来写；

public class Solution {
    /**
     * @param nums: An integer array sorted in ascending order
     * @param target: An integer
     * @return: An integer
     */
    public int findPosition(int[] nums, int target) {
        if(nums == null || nums.length == 0) return -1;
        int start = 0; int end = nums.length -1;
        while(start + 1 < end) {
            int mid = start + (end - start) / 2;
            if(nums[mid] == target){
                return mid;
            } else if(nums[mid] < target) {
                start = mid;
            } else { // nums[mid] > target;
                end = mid;
            }
        }
        
        if(nums[start] == target) {
            return start;
        }
        if(nums[end] == target) {
            return end;
        }
        return -1;
    }
}