Write C and Java programs to implement recursive binary search on a sorted array.

Here, we develop C and Java code to implement binary search using recursion. We develop a method recBinarySearch that takes a sorted array arr storing n integers, where n >= 1 and the search key, and returns the location of the search key if found; else -1.

Binary search looks at the middle element of the list and see if the element sought-for is found. If not, than it compares the sought-for element with the middle element of the array and check whether the middle element is larger than the element we are trying to find. If so, we keep looking in the first half of the list; otherwise, we look in the second half. It cuts the number of elements to be compared by half. We keep going in the same way until the item is found or it is determined that the sought-for element is not present in the list.

Following are the Java and C codes respectively to implement binary search using recursion.

C program for recursive binary search

#include <stdio.h>
 
int recBinarySearch(int*, int, int, int);
 
int main()
 {
    int arr[] = {11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 ,19, 20};
    int key = 13;
    int found = recBinarySearch(arr, key, 0, 10);
 
    if (found > -1)
    {
      printf ("%d found on location: %d\n", key, found);
    }
    else
    {
      printf("Item not found.\n");
    }
 }
 
int recBinarySearch(int arr[], int key, int low, int high)
{
  int mid;
  if (high < low)
  {
    return -1;
  }
 
  mid = (low + high) / 2; 
 
  if (arr[mid] < key)
    return recBinarySearch(arr, key, mid + 1, high);
  else if (arr[mid] > key)
    return recBinarySearch(arr, key, low, mid - 1);
  else
    return mid;
}
 
OUTPUT
======
13 found on location: 2

Java program for recursive binary search

class RecursiveBinarySearch
{
  public static void main (String[] args)
  {
    int arr[] = {11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 ,19, 20};
    int found = recBinarySearch(arr, 13, 0, arr.length - 1);
 
    if (found > -1)
    {
      System.out.println ("Item found on location: " + found);
    }
    else
    {
      System.out.println("Item not found");
    }
  }
 
  static int recBinarySearch(int[] arr, int key, int low, int high)
  {
    int mid;
    if (high < low)
    {
      return -1;
    }
 
    mid = (low + high) / 2; 
 
    if (arr[mid] < key)
      return recBinarySearch(arr, key, mid + 1, high);
    else if (arr[mid] > key)
      return recBinarySearch(arr, key, low, mid - 1);
    else
      return mid;
  }  
}
OUTPUT
======
D:\JavaPrograms>javac RecursiveBinarySearch.java
 
D:\JavaPrograms>java RecursiveBinarySearch
Item found on location: 2

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is the founder and main contributor for cs-fundamentals.com. He is a software professional (post graduated from BITS-Pilani) and loves writing technical articles on programming and data structures.