Question

Is there an equivalent in Java for Python’s bisect module? With Python’s bisect you can do array bisection with directions. For instance bisect.bisect_left does:

Locate the proper insertion point for item in list to maintain sorted order. The parameters lo and hi may be used to specify a subset of the list which should be considered; by default the entire list is used.

I know I can do this manually with a binary search too, but I was wondering if there is already a library or collection doing this.

Answer 1

You have two options:

• java.util.Arrays.binarySearch on arrays
  • (with various overloads for different array types)
• java.util.Collections.binarySearch on List
  • (with Comparable and Comparator overloads).
  • Combine with List.subList(int fromIndex, int toIndex) to search portion of a list