Questions about search algorithm mechanics and implementation. *NOT* for questions about using search tools within an API (e.g. Google, Bing, Facebook).
Searching is one of the most common and important tasks in Computer Science.
The most basic search algorithm is a linear-search (also called "sequential search"). Each item in a collection of data is examined in sequence until the sought item is found.
If the collection in question has already been sorted, for instance, then a more efficient binary-search is possible.
Search can become more complex when, rather than finding one instance of a specific item, we want to find all items meeting a certain set of criteria. For instance a sql query can specify extremely complex search criteria, and much of relational database design involves the planning of an efficient way to perform those searches.
Another more complex search scenario is graph search, in which a series of nodes and edges must be traversed. Common algorithms for this domain include breadth-first-search and depth-first-search. In many cases, a heuristic search algorithm such as a-star can achieve more efficient results by making use of additional information about the problem.
Do not use this tag for questions about specific search tools within an API. Some more relevant tags for that would be the following:
- bing-api: For the Bing search API.
- google-search-api: For the Google search API.
- facebook: For searching with the Facebook api.
