From 53c08b6e5979694e496e31c2598b1da013659ea5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Senrian <47714364+Senrian@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2026 15:01:40 +0800
Subject: [PATCH] fix: handle null and empty array in LinearSearch (issue
 #7340)

---
 src/main/java/com/thealgorithms/searches/LinearSearch.java | 5 ++++-
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/src/main/java/com/thealgorithms/searches/LinearSearch.java b/src/main/java/com/thealgorithms/searches/LinearSearch.java
index 6403749a3154..00fb9c2d0fcf 100644
--- a/src/main/java/com/thealgorithms/searches/LinearSearch.java
+++ b/src/main/java/com/thealgorithms/searches/LinearSearch.java
@@ -41,10 +41,13 @@ public class LinearSearch implements SearchAlgorithm {
      *
      * @param array List to be searched
      * @param value Key being searched for
-     * @return Location of the key
+     * @return Location of the key, -1 if array is null or empty, or key not found
      */
     @Override
     public <T extends Comparable<T>> int find(T[] array, T value) {
+        if (array == null || array.length == 0) {
+            return -1;
+        }
         for (int i = 0; i < array.length; i++) {
             if (array[i].compareTo(value) == 0) {
                 return i;