Linear Search Algorithm

Observations

All the elements are compared until a successfull match is found.

Iteration by Iteration Visualization of Linear Search

Linear Search Algorithm

Let's have a final look at the consolidated algorithm to search for an element in an array of N elements:

• STEP 1 : Start from the leftmost element of list and one by one compare the query element with each element of the list.
• STEP 2 : If the query element matches with an element, return the index.
• STEP 3 : If the query element doesn’t match with any of elements, return failure.