Linear Search in Python
Harshit Jindal
Oct 10, 2023
![Linear Search in Python](/img/Python/ag-feature-image---linear-search-python.webp)
Note
If you want to understand Linear Search in detail then refer to the Linear Search Algorithm article.
Linear Search Algorithm
Let us assume that we have an unsorted array A[]
containing n
elements, and we want to find an element - X
.
-
Traverse all elements inside the array starting from the leftmost element using a
for
loop and do the following:- If the value of
A[i]
matches withX
, then return the indexi
. (If there can be multiple elements matchingX
, then instead of returning the indexi
, either print all indexes or store all the indexes in an array and return that array.) - Else move on to the next element.
- If it is at the last element of the array, quit the
for
loop.
- If the value of
-
If none of the elements matched, then return
-1
.
Linear Search Python Implementation
def linearsearch(arr, n, x):
for i in range(0, n):
if arr[i] == x:
return i
return -1
arr = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
x = 1
n = len(arr)
position = linearsearch(arr, n, x)
if position == -1:
print("Element not found !!!")
else:
print("Element is present at index", position)
Output:
Element is found at index: 1
The time complexity of the above algorithm is O(n)
.
Author: Harshit Jindal
Harshit Jindal has done his Bachelors in Computer Science Engineering(2021) from DTU. He has always been a problem solver and now turned that into his profession. Currently working at M365 Cloud Security team(Torus) on Cloud Security Services and Datacenter Buildout Automation.
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