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Problem: Single Element in a Sorted Array

Medium
30 min
Explore how to find the single distinct element in a sorted array where all other elements occur twice, by applying an efficient modified binary search approach. Understand the problem constraints and implement a solution with logarithmic time and constant space complexity.

Statement

You are given a sorted array of integers, nums, where all integers appear twice except for one. Your task is to find and return the single integer that appears only once.

The solution should have a time complexity of O(log⁡n)O(\log n) or better and a space complexity of O(1)O(1).

Constraints:

  • 1≤1 \leq nums.length ≤103\leq 10^3

  • 0≤0 \leq nums[i] ≤103\leq 10^3

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Problem
Ask
Submissions
Home
Courses
Grokking the Coding Interview Patterns

Problem: Single Element in a Sorted Array

Medium
30 min
Explore how to find the single distinct element in a sorted array where all other elements occur twice, by applying an efficient modified binary search approach. Understand the problem constraints and implement a solution with logarithmic time and constant space complexity.

Statement

You are given a sorted array of integers, nums, where all integers appear twice except for one. Your task is to find and return the single integer that appears only once.

The solution should have a time complexity of O(log⁡n)O(\log n) or better and a space complexity of O(1)O(1).

Constraints:

  • 1≤1 \leq nums.length ≤103\leq 10^3

  • 0≤0 \leq nums[i] ≤103\leq 10^3

Similar Problems
Find First and Last Position of Element in Sorted Array
Binary Search
Search in Rotated Sorted Array
First Bad Version
Find K Closest Elements
Split Array Largest Sum
The K Weakest Rows in a Matrix
Maximum Value at a Given Index in a Bounded Array
Search in Rotated Sorted Array II
Count Pairs Whose Sum is Less than Target