What happens if you apply binary search on an array that is not sorted?
Practice Questions
Q1
What happens if you apply binary search on an array that is not sorted?
It will find the element correctly
It will not find the element
It may return an incorrect index
It will throw an error
Questions & Step-by-Step Solutions
What happens if you apply binary search on an array that is not sorted?
Step 1: Understand what binary search is. It is a method to find an item in a sorted array by repeatedly dividing the search interval in half.
Step 2: Know that binary search requires the array to be sorted in a specific order (either ascending or descending).
Step 3: If you apply binary search on an unsorted array, it will not work correctly because the assumptions about the order of elements are violated.
Step 4: The algorithm may return an index that does not correspond to the target value, or it may indicate that the target value is not present when it actually is.
Step 5: Therefore, always ensure the array is sorted before using binary search.
