Find Minimum in Rotated Sorted Array in DSA C++ - Build from Scratch

Find Minimum in Rotated Sorted Array

📖 Scenario: You have a list of numbers that was originally sorted from smallest to largest. Then, someone rotated it at some point, moving some numbers from the front to the back. Your task is to find the smallest number in this rotated list.

🎯 Goal: Build a program that finds the minimum number in a rotated sorted array using a simple loop.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a vector called nums with the exact values {4, 5, 6, 7, 0, 1, 2}

Create an integer variable called min_val and set it to the first element of nums

Use a for loop with variable num to go through each element in nums

Inside the loop, update min_val if num is smaller

Print the value of min_val

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Finding the minimum in a rotated sorted array is useful in systems where data is rotated or shifted, such as circular buffers or rotated logs.

💼 Career

Understanding this problem helps in technical interviews and shows your ability to work with arrays and loops efficiently.

1

Create the rotated sorted array

Create a vector called nums with these exact values: {4, 5, 6, 7, 0, 1, 2}

DSA C++

#include 
#include 

int main() {

    // Create vector nums with values {4, 5, 6, 7, 0, 1, 2}
    // Your code here

    return 0;
}

Hint

Use std::vector<int> and initialize it with the given numbers.

2

Initialize the minimum value

Create an integer variable called min_val and set it to the first element of nums using nums[0]

DSA C++

#include 
#include 

int main() {
    std::vector nums = {4, 5, 6, 7, 0, 1, 2};

    // Create int min_val and set it to nums[0]
    // Your code here

    return 0;
}

Hint

Use int min_val = nums[0]; to start with the first number as minimum.

3

Find the minimum value using a loop

Use a for loop with variable num to go through each element in nums. Inside the loop, if num is smaller than min_val, update min_val to num

DSA C++

#include 
#include 

int main() {
    std::vector nums = {4, 5, 6, 7, 0, 1, 2};
    int min_val = nums[0];

    // Use for loop with num to check each element in nums
    // Update min_val if num is smaller
    // Your code here

    return 0;
}

Hint

Use a range-based for loop and an if statement to update min_val.

4

Print the minimum value

Print the value of min_val using std::cout

DSA C++

#include 
#include 

int main() {
    std::vector nums = {4, 5, 6, 7, 0, 1, 2};
    int min_val = nums[0];

    for (int num : nums) {
        if (num < min_val) {
            min_val = num;
        }
    }

    // Print min_val
    // Your code here

    return 0;
}

Hint

Use std::cout << min_val << std::endl; to print the minimum value.