Searches the specified list for the specified object using the binary
search algorithm. The list must be sorted into ascending order
according to the specified comparator (as by the
sort(List, Comparator)
method), prior to making this call. If it is
not sorted, the results are undefined. If the list contains multiple
elements equal to the specified object, there is no guarantee which one
will be found.
This method runs in log(n) time for a "random access" list (which
provides near-constant-time positional access). If the specified list
does not implement the RandomAccess
interface and is large,
this method will do an iterator-based binary search that performs
O(n) link traversals and O(log n) element comparisons.
<T> | the class of the objects in the list | |
list | the list to be searched. | |
key | the key to be searched for. | |
c | the comparator by which the list is ordered.
A null value indicates that the elements'
natural ordering should be used. |
(-(insertion point) - 1)
. The
insertion point is defined as the point at which the
key would be inserted into the list: the index of the first
element greater than the key, or list.size()
if all
elements in the list are less than the specified key. Note
that this guarantees that the return value will be >= 0 if
and only if the key is found.
ClassCastException | if the list contains elements that are not mutually comparable using the specified comparator, or the search key is not mutually comparable with the elements of the list using this comparator. |
Diagram: Collections