nag_sort_charvec_search (m01nc) examines an ordered vector of null terminated strings and returns the index of the first value equal to the sought-after item. Character items are compared according to the ASCII collating sequence.

Syntax

[result, ifail] = m01nc(valid, ch, item, 'm1', m1, 'm2', m2)

[result, ifail] = nag_sort_charvec_search(valid, ch, item, 'm1', m1, 'm2', m2)

Description

nag_sort_charvec_search (m01nc) is based on Professor Niklaus Wirth's implementation of the Binary Search algorithm (see Wirth (2004)), but with two modifications. First, if the sought-after item is less than the value of the first element of the array to be searched,

0

is returned. Second, if a value equal to the sought-after item is not found, the index of the immediate lower value is returned.

References

Wirth N (2004) Algorithms and Data Structures 35–36 Prentice Hall

Parameters

Compulsory Input Parameters

1: $valid$ – logical scalar: If valid is set to true argument checking will be performed. If valid is set to false nag_sort_charvec_search (m01nc) will be called without argument checking, which includes checking that array ch is sorted in ascending order and the function will return with $ifail = 0$ . See Further Comments for further details.
2: $ch (m2)$ – cell array of strings: Elements m1 to m2 contain character data to be searched.

Constraint: elements m1 to m2 of ch must be sorted in ascending order. The length of each element of ch must not exceed $255$ . Trailing space characters are ignored.
3: $item$ – string: The sought-after item. Trailing space characters are ignored.

Optional Input Parameters

1: $m1$ – int64int32nag_int scalar: Default: $1$
The index of the first element of ch to be searched.

Constraint: $m1 \geq 1$ .
2: $m2$ – int64int32nag_int scalar: Default: the dimension of the array ch.
The index of the last element of ch to be searched.

Constraint: $m2 \geq m1$ .

Output Parameters

1: $result$ – int64int32nag_int scalar: The result of the function.
2: $ifail$ – int64int32nag_int scalar: $ifail = 0$ unless the function detects an error (see Error Indicators and Warnings).

Error Indicators and Warnings

Errors or warnings detected by the function:

(Note: these errors will only be returned if

valid = true

$ifail = 2$: On entry, ch must be sorted in ascending order.

$ifail = 3$: Constraint: $m1 \geq 1$ .

$ifail = 4$: Constraint: $m2 \geq m1$ .

$ifail = 5$: On entry, the length of each element of ch must be at most $255$ .

$ifail = - 99$: An unexpected error has been triggered by this routine. Please contact NAG.

$ifail = - 399$: Your licence key may have expired or may not have been installed correctly.

$ifail = - 999$: Dynamic memory allocation failed.

Accuracy

Not applicable.

Further Comments

The argument valid should be used with caution. Set it to false only if you are confident that the other arguments are correct, in particular that array ch is in fact arranged in ascending order. If you wish to search the same array ch many times, you are recommended to set valid to true on first call of nag_sort_charvec_search (m01nc) and to false on subsequent calls, in order to minimize the amount of time spent checking ch, which may be significant if ch is large.

The time taken by nag_sort_charvec_search (m01nc) is

O (\log (n))

, where

n = m2 - m1 + 1

, when

valid = false

Example

This example reads a list of character data and sought-after items and performs the search for these items.

Open in the MATLAB editor: m01nc_example

function m01nc_example


fprintf('m01nc example results\n\n');

ch    = {'black  '; 'blue   '; 'crimson'; 'cyan   '; 'green  ';
         'orange '; 'pink   '; 'purple '; 'red    '; 'white  '};
item  = {'blond  '; 'amber  '; 'plum   '; 'yellow '};

m1 = int64([ 1    1    1    5]);
m2 = int64([ 7   10   10   10]);

validate = true;
for j = 1:4
  [result, ifail] = m01nc( ...
                           validate, ch, item{j}, 'm1', m1(j), 'm2', m2(j));
  validate = false;

  fprintf('Search for %s in index range [%2d:%2d]: index = %2d\n', ...
          item{j}, m1(j), m2(j), result);
end

m01nc example results

Search for blond   in index range [ 1: 7]: index =  1
Search for amber   in index range [ 1:10]: index =  0
Search for plum    in index range [ 1:10]: index =  7
Search for yellow  in index range [ 5:10]: index = 10

PDF version (NAG web site, 64-bit version, 64-bit version)

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Chapter Introduction

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