C Program to Search an Element in an Array using Recursion

This C Program uses recursive function & searches for an element in an unsorted list and display it’s position of occurrence. The user enters the element needed to be searched.

Here is the source code of the C program to search for an element in an unsorted list. The C Program is successfully compiled and run on a Linux system. The program output is also shown below.

```
/*
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 * C Program to search for an element in a list using

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 */
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#include <stdio.h>
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int search(int [], int, int);
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int main()
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{
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    int size, index, key;
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    int list[20];
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    int count = 0;
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    int i;
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```
 
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    printf("Enter the size of the list: ");

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    scanf("%d", &size);
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    index = size;
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    printf("Printing the list:\n");
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    for (i = 0; i < size; i++)
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    {
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        list[i] = rand() % size;
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        printf("%d\t", list[i]);
```
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    }
```

    printf("\nEnter the key to search: ");

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    scanf("%d", &key);
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    while (index > 0)
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    {
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        index = search(list, index - 1, key);

        /* In an array first position is indexed by 0 */

        printf("Key found at position: %d\n", index + 1);

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        count++;
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    }
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    if (!count)
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        printf("Key not found.\n");
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    return 0;
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}
```

int search(int array[], int size, int key)

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{
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    int location;
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    if (array[size] == key)
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    {
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        return size;
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    }
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    else if (size == -1)
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    {
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        return -1;
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    }
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    else
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    {
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        return (location = search(array, size - 1, key));

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    }
```
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}
```

$ cc search
$ a.out
Enter the size of the list: 10
 
Printing the list:
3	6	7	5	3	5	6	2	9	1
 
Enter the key to search: 5
 
Key found at position: 6
 
Key found at position: 4

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If you wish to look at other example programs on Searching and Sorting, go to C Programming Examples on Searching and Sorting. If you wish to look at programming examples on all topics, go to C Programming Examples.

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