🍫 A Chocolate Hunt Story
Imagine you’re hungry (like really hungry 😋) and craving your favorite chocolate…
You open your snack box, and here’s what you see:[KitKat, Dairy Milk, Munch, Perk, 5-Star]
Now, you don’t know where Dairy Milk is, so what do you do?
👉 Start checking one by one!
KitKat? → ❌ Nope
Dairy Milk? → ✅ Yesss! Found it 😍
That’s exactly what Linear Search does in coding too!
🧠 What is Linear Search?
Linear Search is like going through each item one-by-one until you find the one you want.
No shortcuts. No tricks. Just pure checking — start to end! 🚶♀️
💡Real Example :
Let’s say you have:
arr = [10, 25, 30, 45, 50]
target = 30
We want to find the number 30.
Let’s dry run this:
📢 Result: Found at index 2.
❓ What if it’s not there?
arr = [10, 25, 30, 45, 50]
target = 100
We check all… and nope! It’s not there 😩
👉 In that case, we return -1 (means “Not Found”).
📌 Simple Steps to Remember:
- Start from the first item
- Check: Is this the one?
- If yes → 🎉 return the index!
- If not → move to next
- Repeat until:
You find the item ✔️
Or reach the end ❌ (return -1)
🧑💻Code Time! (C++)
#include
using namespace std;
int linearSearch(int arr[], int n, int target) {
for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
if (arr[i] == target) {
return i; // Found!
}
}
return -1; // Not found
}
int main() {
int chocoBox[] = {4, 8, 15, 23, 42};
int size = sizeof(chocoBox) / sizeof(chocoBox[0]);
int myFavorite = 23;
int result = linearSearch(chocoBox, size, myFavorite);
if (result != -1)
cout << "🍫 Yay! Found your favorite chocolate at position: " << result;
else
cout << "😔 Oops! Your chocolate isn't in the box!" << endl;
return 0;
}
🖥️ Output :🍫 Yay! Found your favorite chocolate at position: 3
💬 Wrapping Up
Linear Search = The simplest way to find something — one step at a time.
No rocket science. Just like finding your Dairy Milk 🍫 in a snack box!
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