searching within an array

[newbie]

hi all,

one of my friends faced the following question at an interview:

Which method will you follow to search a record from a million records
in an array?

Please help

[Willem Bogaerts]

one of my friends faced the following question at an interview:

>
Which method will you follow to search a record from a million records
in an array?

Please help

Well, that depends, off course (that is why it is a nice question for an
interview).

If the array is sorted and the keys are numeric and all present, you can
write a binary search routine. Otherwise, there are built-in functions
that let you search both keys and values.

Best regards
--
Willem Bogaerts

Application smith
Kratz B.V.
http://www.kratz.nl/

[Colin McKinnon]

newbie wrote:

hi all,

one of my friends faced the following question at an interview:

Which method will you follow to search a record from a million records
in an array?

Please help

something along the lines of:

$idiot =
find_programmer_who_wrote_code($with_array_holding _a_million_records);
apply($idiot, $cattle_prod);

I'd need to be very desperate to take this job.

C.