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Problem: Search in Rotated Sorted Array

Explore how to implement a modified binary search to locate a target in a rotated sorted array. Understand the approach that leverages the sorted half of the array to maintain O(log n) runtime while searching efficiently in a potentially rotated dataset.

Statement

You are given an integer array nums that was originally sorted in ascending order with all distinct values. This array may have been left rotated at some unknown pivot index k, transforming it into [nums[k], nums[k+1], ..., nums[n-1], nums[0], nums[1], ..., nums[k-1]] (using 00-based indexing). If no rotation was applied, the array remains in its original sorted order.

Given the array nums after this possible rotation and an integer target, return the index of target in nums if it exists, or return 1-1 if it does not.

Your solution must achieve O(logn)O(\log n) runtime complexity.

Note: The rotation described is a left rotation, meaning the first k elements are moved to the end of the array.

Constraints:

  • 11 \leq nums.length 5000\leq 5000 ...