Linear search

[Estermont]

How would you write a linear search using a for loop?

[2teez]

Hi Estermont ,

What have you tired?

[Dani]

Let's say you have an array consisting of ten numbers: [ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ]. Now you would like to find number 7. You can start at the beginning, look at each number in the array individually, and then stop when you find a 7.

Something like:

for (i = 0; i < sizeOf(array); i++)
{
    if (array[i] == 7)
    {
        found at position i
        break out of for loop
    }
}

[Chris_38]

or instead of breaking out of the loop ....

int indexOfElement;
for (i = 0; i < sizeOf(array); i++)
{
    if (array[i] == 7)
    {
        found at position i
        indexOfElement = i;
       i = sizeOf(array);  
    }
}

[Dani]

I dunnnno, for readability's sake, I think it makes better sense to break out of the loop than to start introducing a second variable and changing the value of the iterator (i). Obviously the ideal way would be to use a while loop here (while value of array with index ++i is not equal to 7), but the assignment was to use a for loop, so I digress.