Algorithm Implementation | Dataford Interview Questions

Bosch IoT Suite services maintain alert IDs in ascending order for efficient lookup. Given a sorted list of integer alert IDs and a target ID, return the target's zero-based index using binary search. Return -1 if the target is not present.

Formal Specification

Implement search_alert_id(alert_ids, target).

Input: alert_ids, a list of integers sorted in non-decreasing order, and target, an integer.
Output: The zero-based integer index of target, or -1 when no matching ID exists.
If the target appears more than once, return any valid matching index.
The input list must not be modified.

Constraints

0 <= len(alert_ids) <= 10^5
-10^9 <= alert_ids[i], target <= 10^9
alert_ids is sorted in non-decreasing order
The input list must not be modified

Function Signature

def search_alert_id(alert_ids, target):

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