Displaying results of a binary search

[LullaBelle]

Long time, no post. I guess that's a good thing. Anyway, I have all of my code written, I'm only stuck on this one part. After calling my binarySearch function, I have to display the results. If the result is found, I need to indicate which element it was found in, otherwise indicate that it wasn't found.

I thought using the array would be the way to do it, but it isn't. Here is what I did.

if(results != array[ACC_NUMBERS])
      cout << "That number does not exist in the array.\n";
else
      cout << "That number is found at element " << results << " in the array.\n";

The examples I have only have if(results == -1) to show that the number doesn't exist, but it doesn't account for a possible incorrectly inputted number. It'll show that the number exists using garbage numbers. How do I correctly write my if statement to account for this?

[LullaBelle]

Any insight? I've been trying to think of what to do, but nothing is coming to mind. I guess if it's just this one little thing wrong, I won't get too many points knocked off. Everything else is fine. I'll keep thinking.

[SakurasouBusters]

We need to know more of your code.

[mbozzi]

What does your binary search return? Does it return an index into some sorted collection, or the element itself? Just a boolean? Something else? What if the element isn't found?

How you do this depends on the results of the search.

if(results != array[ACC_NUMBERS])
If results is supposed to be an index into an array, then testing it against an element doesn't make much sense.

[LullaBelle]

What would you need? I didn't add more of my code because I didn't think it'd be necessary.

Well, here's my main function as of right now. All the functions calls work.

int main()
{
    int number, results;
    const int ACC_NUMBERS = 10;
    int array[ACC_NUMBERS] = {2345981,9879221,8309212,2098732,5420993,
                              9221987,5092344,2099354,2128309,9873202};

    ///calls to functions
    insertionSort(array, ACC_NUMBERS); ///sorts array in ascending order
    print(array, ACC_NUMBERS);         ///prints the values of the array

    cout << "Enter an account number: ";
    cin >> number;
    results = binarySearch(array, ACC_NUMBERS, number);

    if(results == -1)
        cout << "That number does not exist in the array.\n";
    else
        cout << "That number is found at element " << results << " in the array.\n";
    return 0;
}

[LullaBelle]

What does your binary search return? Does it return an index into some sorted collection, or the element itself? Just a boolean? Something else? What if the element isn't found?

It returns the position of the search value. In the if statement, I'm saying which element the number is found at, but I use subscripts in the binarySearch function. I tried testing against subscripts, but I guess I coded it wrong. I'll try again.