Hi,
While working with Binary Search I have understood that Duplicates in Binary Search in COBOL are not allowed. Could someone tell me the reason behind this? Why duplicates are not allowed?
Duplicates in Binary Search in COBOL.
- Robert Sample
- Global Moderator
- Posts: 1895
- Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 1:22 am
- Location: Dubuque Iowa
Re: Duplicates in Binary Search in COBOL.
I think you misunderstand -- it is not that they are not allowed. It is very possible to generate a table with duplicate key values and use that table in a SEARCH ALL statement. What IBM tells you is that, if the keys are not ascending (or descending, depending upon the coding) -- and duplicate keys are definitely not ascending (nor descending) -- then you CANNOT be assured that the SEARCH ALL worked. It may return a wrong record, or it may fail to return a record even though the key is in the table.
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