34. Search for a Range

Given an array of integers sorted in ascending order, find the starting and ending position of a given target value.

Your algorithm’s runtime complexity must be in the order of O(log n).

If the target is not found in the array, return [-1, -1].

For example, Given [5, 7, 7, 8, 8, 10] and target value 8, return [3, 4].

Code:

class Solution {
    public int[] searchRange(int[] nums, int target) {
    int[] result = new int[2];
    result[0] = findFirst(nums, target);
    result[1] = findLast(nums, target);
    return result;
}

    private int findFirst(int[] nums, int target){
        int idx = -1;
        int start = 0;
        int end = nums.length - 1;
        while(start <= end){
            int mid = (start + end) >>> 1;
            if(nums[mid] >= target){
                end = mid - 1;
            }else{
                start = mid + 1;
            }
            if(nums[mid] == target) idx = mid;
        }
        return idx;
    }

    private int findLast(int[] nums, int target){
        int idx = -1;
        int start = 0;
        int end = nums.length - 1;
        while(start <= end){
            int mid = (start + end) >>> 1;
            if(nums[mid] <= target){
                start = mid + 1;
            }else{
                end = mid - 1;
            }
            if(nums[mid] == target) idx = mid;
        }
        return idx;
    }
}

解题思路

• 使用辅助函数，分别找到排序数组中第一个给定元素和最后一个给定元素；
• 主函数中分别调用两个辅助函数，返回值存入返回数组中。