In connection to self
test question no. 9 at the end of chapter 7 in the
SCJP 1.5 book by K&B.
Please Elucidate the following answer:-
Given a properly prepared
String array containing five elements, which range of results could a proper invocation of Arrays.binarySearch() produce?
A. 0 through 4
B. 0 through 5
C. -1 through 4
D. -1 through 5
E. -5 through 4
F. -5 through 5
G. -6 through 4
H. -6 through 5
Answer:
G is correct. If a match is found, binarySearch()will return the index of the element that was matched. If no match is found, binarySearch() will return a negative number that,if inverted and then decremented, gives you the insertion point (array index) at which the value searched on should be inserted into the array to maintain a proper sort.