Search an Element in a Rotated Sorted Array

Input: Rotated Sorted Array.

What is Rotated Sorted Array.

A sorted array is rotated around some pivot element. See the Example Below, array is rotated after 6.

Rotated Sorted Array

Approach:

Naive Approach: Do the linear scan and find the element in O(n) time

Better Approach:

Since array is still sorted we can use binary search to find the element in O(logn) but we cannot apply normal binary search technique since array is rotated.
Say array is arrA[] and element needs to be searched is 'x'.
Normally when arrA[mid]>arrA[low] we check the left half of the array, make low = mid-1 but here is the twist, array might be rotated.
So first we will check arrA[mid]>arrA[low], if true that means first half of the array is in strictly increasing order. so next check if arrA[mid] > x && arrA[low] <= x, if true then we can confirm that element x will exist in first half of the array (so high = mid-1) else array is rotated in right half and element might be in the right half so (low = mid+1).
If arrA[mid]>arrA[low], if false that means there is rotation in first half of the array . so next check if arrA[mid] < x && arrA[high] >= x, if true then we can confirm that element x will exist in right half of the array (so low = mid+1) else element might be in the first half so (high = mid-1).

Code:

Output:

Index of element 5 is 7