Linear Search Algorithm in DSA Go - Build from Scratch

Linear Search Algorithm

📖 Scenario: You have a list of product IDs in a store inventory. You want to find if a specific product ID is available in the list.

🎯 Goal: Build a simple program that uses linear search to find the position of a product ID in the list.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a slice of integers called products with the exact values: 101, 203, 405, 302, 101, 509

Create an integer variable called target with the value 302

Write a for loop using the index variable i to iterate over products

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

If found, print the message "Product found at index: " followed by the index i

If not found after the loop, print "Product not found"

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Searching for items in a list is common in inventory management, contact lists, or any collection of data.

💼 Career

Understanding linear search helps in debugging and optimizing simple search tasks before moving to advanced algorithms.

1

Create the product list

Create a slice of integers called products with these exact values: 101, 203, 405, 302, 101, 509

DSA Go

# Your code here

Hint

Use products := []int{} to create the slice with the given numbers.

2

Set the target product ID

Create an integer variable called target and set it to 302

DSA Go

package main

func main() {
    products := []int{101, 203, 405, 302, 101, 509}
    
    // Your code here
}

Hint

Use target := 302 to create the variable.

3

Write the linear search loop

Write a for loop with index variable i to iterate over products. Inside the loop, use an if statement to check if products[i] equals target. If yes, print "Product found at index: " and the index i, then return to stop the search.

DSA Go

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
    products := []int{101, 203, 405, 302, 101, 509}
    target := 302

    // Your code here
}

Hint

Use a for loop from 0 to len(products). Inside, check if products[i] equals target. If yes, print and return.

4

Print not found message

After the loop, print "Product not found" if the product was not found.

DSA Go

package main

import "fmt"

func main() {
    products := []int{101, 203, 405, 302, 101, 509}
    target := 302

    for i := 0; i < len(products); i++ {
        if products[i] == target {
            fmt.Println("Product found at index:", i)
            return
        }
    }

    // Your code here
}

Hint

Print "Product not found" after the loop if no match was found.