std::binary_search

 

C++

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Regular expressions library (C++11)

Atomic operations library (C++11)

Thread support library (C++11)

Technical Specifications

 

Algorithm library

Functions
Non-modifying sequence operations
all_ofany_ofnone_of (C++11)(C++11)(C++11) for_each countcount_if mismatch equal	findfind_iffind_if_not (C++11) find_end find_first_of adjacent_find search search_n
Modifying sequence operations
copycopy_if (C++11) copy_n (C++11) copy_backward move (C++11) move_backward (C++11) fill fill_n transform generate generate_n removeremove_if remove_copyremove_copy_if	replacereplace_if replace_copyreplace_copy_if swap swap_ranges iter_swap reverse reverse_copy rotate rotate_copy random_shuffleshuffle (until C++17)(C++11) unique unique_copy
Partitioning operations
is_partitioned (C++11) partition partition_copy (C++11)	stable_partition partition_point (C++11)
Sorting operations (on sorted ranges)
is_sorted (C++11) is_sorted_until (C++11) sort	partial_sort partial_sort_copy stable_sort nth_element
Binary search operations (on sorted ranges)
lower_bound upper_bound	binary_search equal_range
Set operations (on sorted ranges)
merge inplace_merge includes	set_difference set_intersection set_symmetric_difference set_union
Heap operations
is_heap (C++11) is_heap_until (C++11) make_heap	push_heap pop_heap sort_heap
Minimum/maximum operations
max max_element min min_element minmax (C++11) minmax_element (C++11)	lexicographical_compare is_permutation (C++11) next_permutation prev_permutation
Numeric operations
iota (C++11) accumulate inner_product	adjacent_difference partial_sum
C library
qsort	bsearch

 

Defined in header <algorithm>
template< class ForwardIt, class T > bool binary_search( ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last, const T& value );	(1)
template< class ForwardIt, class T, class Compare > bool binary_search( ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last, const T& value, Compare comp );	(2)

Checks if an element equivalent to value appears within the range [first, last).

For std::binary_search to succeed, the range [first, last) must be at least partially ordered, i.e. it must satisfy all of the following requirements:

• partitioned with respect to element < value or comp(element, value)
• partitioned with respect to !(value < element) or !comp(value, element)
• for all elements, if element < value or comp(element, value) is true then !(value < element) or !comp(value, element) is also true

A fully-sorted range meets these criteria, as does a range resulting from a call to std::partition.

The first version uses operator< to compare the elements, the second version uses the given comparison function comp.

Parameters

first, last	-	the range of elements to examine
value	-	value to compare the elements to
comp	-	comparison function object (i.e. an object that satisfies the requirements of Compare) which returns ​true if the first argument is less than (i.e. is ordered before) the second. The signature of the comparison function should be equivalent to the following:  bool cmp(const Type1 &a, const Type2 &b); The signature does not need to have const &, but the function object must not modify the objects passed to it. The types Type1 and Type2 must be such that an object of type T can be implicitly converted to both Type1 and Type2, and an object of type ForwardIt can be dereferenced and then implicitly converted to both Type1 and Type2. ​
Type requirements
- ForwardIt must meet the requirements of ForwardIterator.

Return value

true if an element equal to value is found, false otherwise.

Complexity

The number of comparisons performed is logarithmic in the distance between first and last (At most log
2(last - first) + O(1) comparisons). However, for non-RandomAccessIterators, number of iterator increments is linear.

Possible implementation

First version
template<class ForwardIt, class T> bool binary_search(ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last, const T& value) { first = std::lower_bound(first, last, value); return (!(first == last) && !(value < *first)); }
Second version
template<class ForwardIt, class T, class Compare> bool binary_search(ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last, const T& value, Compare comp) { first = std::lower_bound(first, last, value, comp); return (!(first == last) && !(comp(value, *first))); }

Example

Run this code

#include <iostream>
#include <algorithm>
#include <vector>
 
int main()
{
    std::vector<int> haystack {1, 3, 4, 5, 9};
    std::vector<int> needles {1, 2, 3};
 
    for (auto needle : needles) {
        std::cout << "Searching for " << needle << '\n';
        if (std::binary_search(haystack.begin(), haystack.end(), needle)) {
            std::cout << "Found " << needle << '\n';
        } else {
            std::cout << "no dice!\n";
        }
    }
}

Output:

Searching for 1
Found 1
Searching for 2
no dice!
Searching for 3
Found 3

See also

equal_range

returns range of elements matching a specific key (function template)