In Binary search I posted a binary search snippet. Having recently revisited the code I've rolled in the cmp suggestion zby made, handle empty lists and generally pimped the code.

This is the updated code. Note that undef is returned for an empty list.

use strict;
use warnings;

my @array = (1, 3, 5, 8, 10);
print "\n", join ", ", @array, "\n";
print "Found 0 at " . BinSearch (0, \&cmpFunc, \@array) . "\n";
print "Found 1 at " . BinSearch (1, \&cmpFunc, \@array) . "\n";
print "Found 2 at " . BinSearch (2, \&cmpFunc, \@array) . "\n";
print "Found 5 at " . BinSearch (5, \&cmpFunc, \@array) . "\n";
print "Found 8 at " . BinSearch (8, \&cmpFunc, \@array) . "\n";
print "Found 10 at " . BinSearch (10, \&cmpFunc, \@array) . "\n";
print "Found 11 at " . BinSearch (11, \&cmpFunc, \@array) . "\n";

@array = (1, 3, 5, 8,);
print "\n", join ", ", @array, "\n";
print "Found 0 at " . BinSearch (0, \&cmpFunc, \@array) . "\n";
print "Found 1 at " . BinSearch (1, \&cmpFunc, \@array) . "\n";
print "Found 2 at " . BinSearch (2, \&cmpFunc, \@array) . "\n";
print "Found 5 at " . BinSearch (5, \&cmpFunc, \@array) . "\n";
print "Found 8 at " . BinSearch (8, \&cmpFunc, \@array) . "\n";
print "Found 9 at " . BinSearch (9, \&cmpFunc, \@array) . "\n";

@array = (1,);
print "\n", join ", ", @array, "\n";
print "Found 0 at " . BinSearch (0, \&cmpFunc, \@array) . "\n";
print "Found 1 at " . BinSearch (1, \&cmpFunc, \@array) . "\n";
print "Found 2 at " . BinSearch (2, \&cmpFunc, \@array) . "\n";

@array = ();
print "\n", join ", ", @array, "\n";
print "Found 0 at " . BinSearch (0, \&cmpFunc, \@array) . "\n";


sub cmpFunc {
    $_[0] <=> $_[1];
}

-------------- 8< --------------

1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 
Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at C:\Docume
+nts and Settings\Peter.WINDOMAIN\My Documents\PerlMonks\junk\noname.p
+l line 31.
Found 0 at -0.5
Found 1 at 0
Found 2 at 0.5
Found 5 at 2
Found 8 at 3
Found 10 at 4
Found 11 at 4.5

1, 3, 5, 8, 
Found 0 at -0.5
Found 1 at 0
Found 2 at 0.5
Found 5 at 2
Found 8 at 3
Found 9 at 3.5

1, 
Found 0 at -0.5
Found 1 at 0
Found 2 at 0.5


Found 0 at

[download]
sub BinSearch {
    my ($target, $cmp, $array) = @_;
    my $posmin = 0;
    my $posmax = $#$array;
    
    return undef if ! @array;
    return -0.5 if $cmp->($array->[0], $target) > 0;
    return $#$array + 0.5 if $cmp->($array->[-1], $target) < 0;
    
    while (1) {
        my $mid = int (($posmin + $posmax) / 2);
        my $result = $cmp->($array->[$mid], $target);
        
        if ($result < 0) {
            $posmin = $posmax, next if $mid == $posmin && $posmax != $
+posmin;
            return $mid + 0.5 if $mid == $posmin;
            $posmin = $mid;
        } elsif ($result > 0) {
            $posmax = $posmin, next if $mid == $posmax && $posmax != $
+posmin;
            return $mid - 0.5 if $mid == $posmax;
            $posmax = $mid;
        } else {
            return $mid;
        }
    }
}

[download]

In reply to Binary Search - revisited by GrandFather

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