edubu2 / binary-search

Compares the efficiency of binary search vs. linear search using custom Python search functions.

Binary Search with Python

My objective is to compare the efficiency of binary search vs. linear search methods. For this example I am using sample data provided by python's 'faker' library, which gave me 10,000 sample names (first + last). utils.py pulls these names into a list that is used by search_binary.py and search_linear.py to return the index of a certain value (key).

In order to see the difference, we will search for every name in the list using both methods, and compare the results.

To reproduce locally:

1. Fork this repository to your local machine & cd into the repository
2. From the command-line, enter pip3 install faker
3. from the command line (Linux/MacOS), create the 'names.txt' file by using the following command:

• python3 name_generator.py 10000 > names.txt

4. Finally, enter the following two commands and compare the results:

• time python3 search_linear.py
• time python3 search_binary.py

Results from my machine

python3 search_linear.py 2.19s user 0.01s system 99% cpu 2.199 total

python3 search_binary.py 0.06s user 0.01s system 95% cpu 0.073 total