Linear Search Algorithm in DSA C++ - Build from Scratch

Linear Search Algorithm

📖 Scenario: You have a list of product IDs in a store's inventory. You want to find if a specific product ID is available by checking each product one by one.

🎯 Goal: Build a simple linear search program in C++ that looks for a given product ID in a list and tells if it is found or not.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create an array called products with these exact integers: 101, 203, 405, 607, 809

Create an integer variable called target and set it to 405

Use a for loop with variable i to iterate over the products array

Inside the loop, use an if statement to check if products[i] equals target

Create a boolean variable called found to track if the target is found

Print "Found" if the target is in the array, otherwise print "Not Found"

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Stores and inventory systems often need to check if a product is available by searching through lists of product IDs.

💼 Career

Understanding linear search is a fundamental skill for software developers working with data lookup and simple search tasks.

1

Create the product list

Create an integer array called products with these exact values: 101, 203, 405, 607, 809

DSA C++

// Your code here

Hint

Use int products[] = {101, 203, 405, 607, 809}; to create the array.

2

Set the target product ID

Create an integer variable called target and set it to 405

DSA C++

#include 

int main() {
    int products[] = {101, 203, 405, 607, 809};
    // Your code here
    return 0;
}

Hint

Use int target = 405; to set the product ID to search for.

3

Search for the target using a loop

Create a boolean variable called found and set it to false. Use a for loop with variable i to iterate over the products array. Inside the loop, use an if statement to check if products[i] equals target. If yes, set found to true and use break to stop the loop.

DSA C++

#include 

int main() {
    int products[] = {101, 203, 405, 607, 809};
    int target = 405;
    // Your code here
    return 0;
}

Hint

Use a for loop from 0 to 4 and check each product. Set found to true and break if you find the target.

4

Print the search result

Use an if statement to print "Found" if found is true. Otherwise, print "Not Found".

DSA C++

#include 

int main() {
    int products[] = {101, 203, 405, 607, 809};
    int target = 405;
    bool found = false;
    for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
        if (products[i] == target) {
            found = true;
            break;
        }
    }
    // Your code here
    return 0;
}

Hint

Use if (found) to print "Found" and else to print "Not Found".