上面有很多好的解决方案，但我还没有看到一个简单的(KISS保持简单(因为我是)愚蠢的使用Python内置/通用平分函数来做二进制搜索。使用bisect函数的一些代码，我想下面有一个示例，其中我测试了一个小字符串数组的所有情况。上面的一些解决方案提到了这一点，但希望下面的简单代码能帮助像我一样困惑的人。

Python bisect is used to indicate where to insert an a new value/search item into a sorted list. The below code which uses bisect_left which will return the index of the hit if the search item in the list/array is found (Note bisect and bisect_right will return the index of the element after the hit or match as the insertion point) If not found, bisect_left will return an index to the next item in the sorted list which will not == the search value. The only other case is where the search item would go at the end of the list where the index returned would be beyond the end of the list/array, and which in the code below the early exit by Python with "and" logic handles. (first condition False Python does not check subsequent conditions)

#Code
from bisect import bisect_left
names=["Adam","Donny","Jalan","Zach","Zayed"]
search=""
lenNames = len(names)
while search !="none":
    search =input("Enter name to search for or 'none' to terminate program:")
    if search == "none":
        break
    i = bisect_left(names,search)
    print(i) # show index returned by Python bisect_left
    if i < (lenNames) and names[i] == search:
        print(names[i],"found") #return True - if function
    else:
        print(search,"not found") #return False – if function
##Exhaustive test cases:
##Enter name to search for or 'none' to terminate program:Zayed
##4
##Zayed found
##Enter name to search for or 'none' to terminate program:Zach
##3
##Zach found
##Enter name to search for or 'none' to terminate program:Jalan
##2
##Jalan found
##Enter name to search for or 'none' to terminate program:Donny
##1
##Donny found
##Enter name to search for or 'none' to terminate program:Adam
##0
##Adam found
##Enter name to search for or 'none' to terminate program:Abie
##0
##Abie not found
##Enter name to search for or 'none' to terminate program:Carla
##1
##Carla not found
##Enter name to search for or 'none' to terminate program:Ed
##2
##Ed not found
##Enter name to search for or 'none' to terminate program:Roger
##3
##Roger not found
##Enter name to search for or 'none' to terminate program:Zap
##4
##Zap not found
##Enter name to search for or 'none' to terminate program:Zyss
##5
##Zyss not found

在维基百科http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_search_algorithm上查看例子

def binary_search(a, key, imin=0, imax=None):
    if imax is None:
        # if max amount not set, get the total
        imax = len(a) - 1

    while imin <= imax:
        # calculate the midpoint
        mid = (imin + imax)//2
        midval = a[mid]

        # determine which subarray to search
        if midval < key:
            # change min index to search upper subarray
            imin = mid + 1
        elif midval > key:
            # change max index to search lower subarray
            imax = mid - 1
        else:
            # return index number 
            return mid
    raise ValueError

如果你只是想看看它是否存在，试着把这个列表变成一个词典:

# Generate a list
l = [n*n for n in range(1000)]

# Convert to dict - doesn't matter what you map values to
d = dict((x, 1) for x in l)

count = 0
for n in range(1000000):
    # Compare with "if n in l"
    if n in d:
        count += 1

在我的机器上，“if n in l”需要37秒，而“if n in d”需要0.4秒。

我想使用bisect_left，然后检查是否在那项 position等于我要搜索的内容，但这看起来很麻烦 (我还需要做边界检查，如果数字可以更大 而不是我列表中最大的数字)。如果有更好的方法，我会 我想了解一下。

避免边界检查或相等性检查的一种方法是同时运行bisect_left()和bisect_right():

def find(data, target):
    start = bisect_left(data, target)
    end = bisect_right(data, target)
    return -1 if start == end else start

虽然Python中没有显式的二进制搜索算法，但有一个模块- bisect -用于使用二进制搜索在排序列表中找到元素的插入点。这可以被“欺骗”为执行二分搜索。它最大的优势和大多数库代码一样——它是高性能的，经过良好测试的，并且可以正常工作(特别是二进制搜索很难成功实现——特别是在没有仔细考虑边缘情况的情况下)。

基本类型

对于基本类型，如string或int，这是非常简单的-你只需要bisect模块和一个排序列表:

>>> import bisect
>>> names = ['bender', 'fry', 'leela', 'nibbler', 'zoidberg']
>>> bisect.bisect_left(names, 'fry')
1
>>> keyword = 'fry'
>>> x = bisect.bisect_left(names, keyword)
>>> names[x] == keyword
True
>>> keyword = 'arnie'
>>> x = bisect.bisect_left(names, keyword)
>>> names[x] == keyword
False

你也可以用它来查找副本:

...
>>> names = ['bender', 'fry', 'fry', 'fry', 'leela', 'nibbler', 'zoidberg']
>>> keyword = 'fry'
>>> leftIndex = bisect.bisect_left(names, keyword)
>>> rightIndex = bisect.bisect_right(names, keyword)
>>> names[leftIndex:rightIndex]
['fry', 'fry', 'fry']

显然，如果需要，您可以只返回索引，而不是该索引处的值。

对象

对于自定义类型或对象，事情有点棘手:您必须确保实现丰富的比较方法，以便正确地进行比较。

>>> import bisect
>>> class Tag(object):  # a simple wrapper around strings
...     def __init__(self, tag):
...         self.tag = tag
...     def __lt__(self, other):
...         return self.tag < other.tag
...     def __gt__(self, other):
...         return self.tag > other.tag
...
>>> tags = [Tag('bender'), Tag('fry'), Tag('leela'), Tag('nibbler'), Tag('zoidbe
rg')]
>>> key = Tag('fry')
>>> leftIndex = bisect.bisect_left(tags, key)
>>> rightIndex = bisect.bisect_right(tags, key)
>>> print([tag.tag for tag in tags[leftIndex:rightIndex]])
['fry']

这应该至少在Python 2.7 -> 3.3中工作

值得一提的是，bisect文档现在提供了搜索示例: http://docs.python.org/library/bisect.html#searching-sorted-lists

(引发ValueError而不是返回-1或None更加python化——例如，list.index()会这样做。当然，你也可以根据自己的需要调整这些例子。)