Search in a Rotated Sorted Array

Problem You are given a sorted array nums with distinct values, which might have been rotated at an unknown pivot. Your task: find the index of a target number, or return -1 if it is not present. T...

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Search in a Rotated Sorted Array

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Problem You are given a sorted array nums with distinct values, which might have been rotated at an unknown pivot. Your task: find the index of a target number, or return -1 if it is not present. The algorithm must run in O(log n) time. Examples Input nums = [4,5,6,7,0,1,2], target = 0 Output 4 Input nums = [4,5,6,7,0,1,2], target = 3 Output -1 Input nums = [1], target = 0 Output -1 Approach Use modified binary search: Initialize low = 0 and high = n-1. While low <= high, find mid = (low + high) // 2. If nums[mid] == target, return mid. Determine which side is sorted: If left side is sorted (nums[low] <= nums[mid]), check if target is in [low, mid]. Else, target must be in the right side. Adjust low and high accordingly. If target not found, return -1. This works in O(log n) because each step eliminates half of the search space. Python Code class Solution: def search(self, nums, target): left = 0 right = len(nums) - 1 while left <= right: mid = (left + right) // 2 if nums[mid]

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