Using an array of Strings for Binary Search enquiry

Question

I was looking at a previous question submitted a while back and had further inquiry on it. The link is here:

The first answer give it nearly answers my question, but not fully. In the one shown above the Array has a collection of int values. However, I have an array that stores String values, therefore when I call Array[mid] it won't allow this, since mid is an int value and not a String. I receive the error " The operator < is undefined for the argument type(s) Entry, String ", I'm assuming because I'm calling mid ( an int value ) with an array of strings, although mid really is a reference to the middle index not the actual values stored in the array.

I could potentially completely wrong here and therefore seem stupid :P but I'm pretty confused, any help appreciated.

Joffrey · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-16 18:38:22Z

2

The problem is not that you use mid, which is an int, to index an array of Strings. This is perfectly fine. The problem is that you try to use the > operator with Strings.

To compare Strings, you can use compareTo instead of >.

So, instead of:

a[mid] < key

You would use:

a[mid].compareTo(key) < 0

edited Apr 16, 2014 at 18:38

answered Apr 16, 2014 at 18:31

Joffrey

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2 Comments

user3443834 Over a year ago

Hey, thanks a lot. Why in the link I provided were they able to use the '>' operator ?

Joffrey Over a year ago

@user3443834 This operator is defined for the int type, as well as some others (double, char...), but not for Strings.

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