From b74d43f30f00683bc36f095956a3f95f3202172b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Swaati Raveendra <swaatiraveendra1@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2026 12:01:35 +0530
Subject: [PATCH] Added input validation and clarify sorted array rrequirement
 in Binary Search

---
 src/main/java/com/thealgorithms/searches/BinarySearch.java | 7 ++++++-
 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/src/main/java/com/thealgorithms/searches/BinarySearch.java b/src/main/java/com/thealgorithms/searches/BinarySearch.java
index bedad1667f33..0cac484d56b4 100644
--- a/src/main/java/com/thealgorithms/searches/BinarySearch.java
+++ b/src/main/java/com/thealgorithms/searches/BinarySearch.java
@@ -5,7 +5,9 @@
 /**
  * Binary search is one of the most popular algorithms The algorithm finds the
  * position of a target value within a sorted array
- *
+ * IMPORTANT
+ * This algorithm works correctly only if the input array is sorted
+ * in ascending order.
  * <p>
  * Worst-case performance O(log n) Best-case performance O(1) Average
  * performance O(log n) Worst-case space complexity O(1)
@@ -25,6 +27,9 @@ class BinarySearch implements SearchAlgorithm {
      */
     @Override
     public <T extends Comparable<T>> int find(T[] array, T key) {
+        if (array == null || array.length == 0) {
+            return -1;
+        }
         return search(array, key, 0, array.length - 1);
     }