Linear Search Java Code

1    int[] data;
2    int size;
3
4    public boolean linearSearch(int key) 
5    {
6        int index = 0;
7        while(index < size) {
8             if(data[index] == key) {
9                 return true;
10            }
11            if(data[index] < key)) {
12                return false;
13            }
14             index++;
15        }
16        return false;
17   }

Explanation:

• line 1: tells us that we have an array of integers called data. An array is just an ordered list of values, just like the list we talked about in our algorithm. An integer is a positive or negative whole number.
• line 2: size tells us the number of items that we have in the list.
• lines 4, 5, and 17: These lines tell us that the code between line 5 and 17 performs one task, and give the name linearSearch to the task. key is the target item that we will search for in data. The word boolean tells us that linearSearch will return true if it finds the key in the list, and it will return false if the key is not in the list.
• line 6: index is the variable we will use to get the next item in the list, so we will give it an initial value of 0.
• line 7: This line says that we will keep repeating the lines between 7 and 15 as long as index < size
• line 8, 9, 10: if we have found our key, then we return true
• line 11, 12, 13: if the item in the list has a smaller value than our key, we know the key cannot be in the list so we return false.
• line 14: We add one to index which lets us look at the next item in the list.