C program to search an item in an array using recursion

In this tutorial, we will learn how to search an item in an array using recursion in C language? By Nidhi Last updated : August 10, 2023

Problem statement

Create an array of integers, then search an array element using recursion and print the index of the item.

C program to search an item in an array using recursion

The source code to search an item in an array using recursion is given below. The given program is compiled and executed using GCC compile on UBUNTU 18.04 OS successfully.

// C program to search an item in array
// using the recursion

#include <stdio.h>

int searchItem(int arr[], int len, int item)
{
    if (arr[len] == item)
        return len;
    else if (len == -1)
        return -1;
    else
        return searchItem(arr, len - 1, item);
}

int main()
{
    int arr[] = { 23, 10, 46, 21, 75 };
    int index = 0;
    int item = 0;

    printf("Enter item to search: ");
    scanf("%d", &item);

    index = searchItem(arr, 5, item);
    if (index == -1)
        printf("Item not found in array\n");
    else
        printf("Item found at index %d\n", index);

    return 0;
}

Output

RUN 1:
Enter item to search: 46
Item found at index 2

RUN 2:
Enter item to search: 75
Item found at index 4

RUN 3:
Enter item to search: 99
Item not found in array

Explanation

Here, we created two functions searchItem() and main(). The searchItem() is a recursive function, which is used to search an item in the array and return the index of the item to the calling function.

In the main() function, we created an array of integers arr with 5 elements. Then we searched the item in the array and printed the index of the item in the array.