Programming question! :)

[Leffmann]

Don't know about a binary tree, but a binary search will reduce the number of searches to log2 n, i.e. if you have an array of 256 numbers it will do 8 searches. Basic implementation would be:

Code: [Select]

// For an array of 100 numbers, call with binsearch(n, 0, 99);

int binsearch(int n, int a, int b)
{
  if(a == b)
    return a;

  int mid = a + (b-a)/2;
 
  if(n < array[mid])
    return binsearch(n, a, mid);
  else
    return binsearch(n, mid+1, b);
}

EDIT: this binary search assumes the array is sorted in ascending order.

[Leffmann]

An elegant search algorithm, but unsuitable for my application as I'm not searching for a specific value, but a boundary

Actually it's adjusted to do exactly what you want, and can even be optimized further.