C Program to Search an Element in an Array

In this article, we will show you, How to write a C Program to Search an Element in an Array with example. Before going into this article, Please refer Array in C article to understand the concept of Array size, index position etc.

C Program to Search an Element in an Array

This program ask the user to enter the Array size, Array elements and the Search item value. Next, it will check whether the user entered search item is present in the array or not using For Loop.

/* C Program to Search an Element in an Array */
 
#include<stdio.h>

int main()
{
  	int arr[10], Size, i, Search, Flag;
  
  	printf("\n Please Enter the size of an array :  ");
  	scanf("%d",&Size);
 
  	printf("\n Please Enter %d elements of an array: \n", Size);
  	for(i = 0; i < Size; i++)
   	{
   	 	scanf("%d",&arr[i]);
   	}
	
	printf("\n Please Enter the Search Element  :  ");
  	scanf("%d",&Search);      
 
  	Flag = 0;
  	for(i = 0; i < Size; i++)
   	{
   		if(arr[i] == Search)
     	{
       		Flag = 1;
       		break;
	 	}   
   	}
  
  	if(Flag == 1)
  	{
  		printf("\n We found the Search Element %d at Position %d ", Search, i + 1);
	}
	else
	{
		printf("\n Sorry!! We haven't found the the Search Element %d ", Search);
	}	
  	return 0;
}

OUTPUT

ANALYSIS
In this Program, We declared 1 One Dimensional Arrays arr[] of size 10 and also declared i to iterate the Array elements

Below statements will asks the User to enter the array arr[] size (Number of elements an Array can hold), and assign the user entered values to Size variable.

printf("\n Please Enter the size of an array \n");
scanf("%d",&Size);

Below For loop will help to iterate each and every cell present in the a[5] array. Condition inside the for loops (i < Size) will ensure the compiler, not to exceed the array limit.

The scanf statement inside the for loop store the user entered values into individual array element such as arr[0], arr[1], arr[2], arr[3], arr[4]

for(i = 0; i < Size; i++)
   	{
   	 	scanf("%d",&arr[i]);
   	}

In the next line, We have one more for loop, it is used to iterate each and every element in an array. If Statement inside the For loop will check whether arr[i] is equal to search item or not. If it is true then Flag will become 1 and exit from the Loop (using Break Statement)

for(i = 0; i < Size; i++)
   	{
   		if(arr[i] == Search)
     	{
       		Flag = 1;
       		break;
	 	}   
   	}

From the above screenshot you can observe that, User inserted values are
a[5] = {10, 20, 30, 20, 40} and search Item = 20

First Iteration
The value of i will be 0 and the condition (i < 5) is True. So, it will start executing the statements inside the loop until the condition fails.
If (arr[i] == Search)  => if(10 == 20)
Condition is False

Second Iteration
The value of i will be 1 and the condition (i < 5) is True.
If (arr[1] == Search)  => if(20 == 20)
Condition is True
Flag = 1

Next, Break statement will exit from the Loop
Next, we used If else Statement to check whether Flag value is equal to 1 or not. If true then Search item is present else not present.

Let me try different array elements

Thank you for Visiting Our Blog