Python Program for Linear Search
Problem: Given an array arr[] of n elements, write a function to search a given element x in arr[].
Examples :
Input : arr[] = {10, 20, 80, 30, 60, 50,
110, 100, 130, 170}
x = 110;
Output : 6
Element x is present at index 6
Input : arr[] = {10, 20, 80, 30, 60, 50,
110, 100, 130, 170}
x = 175;
Output : -1
Element x is not present in arr[].
A simple approach is to do linear search, i.e
- Start from the leftmost element of arr[] and one by one compare x with each element of arr[]
- If x matches with an element, return the index.
- If x doesn’t match with any of elements, return -1.
Example: 
# Searching an element in a list/array in python # can be simply done using \'in\' operator # Example: # if x in arr: # print arr.index(x) # If you want to implement Linear Search in python # Linearly search x in arr[] # If x is present then return its location # else return -1 def search(arr, x): for i in range(len(arr)): if arr[i] == x: return i return -1 |
The time complexity of above algorithm is O(n).