Search for a Range问题及解法

问题描述：

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].

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

问题分析：

题目要求时间复杂度为O(logN)，本题又是一个查找问题，所以可以采用二元查找法，先求出最左边的target索引，再求出右边的target索引，这里有个小技巧，mid的取值，可以使得查找的方向向左或者向右偏移。

过程详见代码：

class Solution {
public:
    vector<int> searchRange(vector<int>& nums, int target) {
        
        int i = 0, j = nums.size() - 1;
	    vector<int> ret(2, -1);
        if(nums.empty()) return ret;
	    // Search for the left one
	    while (i < j)
	    {
	        int mid = (i + j) /2;
	        if (nums[mid] < target) i = mid + 1;
	        else j = mid;
	    }
	    if (nums[i]!=target) return ret;
	    else ret[0] = i;
	    
	    // Search for the right one
	    j = nums.size() - 1;  // We don't have to set i to 0 the second time.
	    while (i < j)
	    {
	        int mid = (i + j) /2 + 1;	// Make mid biased to the right
	        if (nums[mid] > target) j = mid - 1;  
	        else i = mid;				// So that this won't make the search range stuck.
	    }
	    ret[1] = j;
	    return ret; 
    }
};