Linear Search Algorithm

Linear search is a very simple search algorithm. In this type of search, we start at the beginning and inspect each element. If a match is found then that particular location is returned, otherwise the search continues.

The following code shows the implementation of linear search algorithm

#include<iostream>
using namespace std;
int linear_search(int a[],int key,int n){
	for(int i=0;i<n;i++){
		if(a[i]==key) return i;
	}
	return -1;
}
int main(){
	int a[]={1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9};
	int size = sizeof(a)/sizeof(int);
	int z = linear_search(a,5,size);
	if(z!=-1){
		cout<<"Element is at "<<z;
	}
	else {
		cout<<"Element is not present";
	}
	return 0;
}

We get the following output.

If the value is not present, the function returns -1 and the program displays that the element is not present.