The Most Efficient Algorithm to Find First Prefix-Match From a Sorted String Array?

Question

Input:

1) A huge sorted array of string SA;

2) A prefix string P;

Output:

The index of the first string matching the input prefix if any. If ther

Answer 1

My solution: Used binary search.

private static int search(String[] words, String searchPrefix) {

        if (words == null || words.length == 0) {
            return -1;
        }
        int low = 0;
        int high = words.length - 1;
        int searchPrefixLength = searchPrefix.length();

        while (low <= high) {
            int mid = low + (high - low) / 2;

            String word = words[mid];
            int compare = -1;

            if (searchPrefixLength <= word.length()) {
                compare = word.substring(0, searchPrefixLength).compareTo(searchPrefix);
            }

            if (compare == 0) {
                return mid;
            } else if (compare > 0) {
                high = mid - 1;
            } else {
                low = mid + 1;
            }

        }
        return -1;
    }