ArraysLesson 12Free preview

DSA Linear Search

This lesson is part of DSA · All levels

Summary

Linear search searches the list one by one from the beginning until it finds a target or a list of finished ones. This method is simple and can work on data that is not sorted or stored on a sequential structure. Because it has to examine all the elements in the worst case, its complexity is linear, i.e. O(n).

Key points

Check each element in sequence from the beginning of the list
No need for data sequencing
Returns the index or marker -1 when the target is not found
Complexity in all cases

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