Java/src/main/java/com/thealgorithms/searches/LinearSearch.java

package com.thealgorithms.searches;

import com.thealgorithms.devutils.searches.SearchAlgorithm;

/**
 * Linear search is the easiest search algorithm It works with sorted and
 * unsorted arrays (an binary search works only with sorted array) This
 * algorithm just compares all elements of an array to find a value
 *
 * <p>
 * Worst-case performance O(n) Best-case performance O(1) Average performance
 * O(n) Worst-case space complexity
 *
 * @author Varun Upadhyay (https://github.com/varunu28)
 * @author Podshivalov Nikita (https://github.com/nikitap492)
 * @see BinarySearch
 * @see SearchAlgorithm
 */
public class LinearSearch implements SearchAlgorithm {

    /**
     * Generic Linear search method
     *
     * @param array List to be searched
     * @param value Key being searched for
     * @return Location of the key
     */
    @Override
    public <T extends Comparable<T>> int find(T[] array, T value) {
        for (int i = 0; i < array.length; i++) {
            if (array[i].compareTo(value) == 0) {
                return i;
            }
        }
        return -1;
    }
}