Naive binary search implementation for Strings in Java.

BinarySearch.java

import java.io.*;

public class BinarySearch {
	private static void sort(String [] words) {
		int length = words.length;
		for(int i=0; i<length; i++) {
			for(int j=i; j<length; j++) {
				if(words[i].compareTo(words[j]) > 0) {
					String temp = words[i];
					words[i] = words[j];
					words[j] = temp;
				}
			}
		}
	}

	private static int bsearch(String word, String [] words, int a, int b) {
		if(b <= a)
			return -1;

		if(b - a == 1)
			return words[a].equals(word) ? a : -1;

		int pivot = (a + b)/2;
		if(word.compareTo(words[pivot]) < 0) {
			return bsearch(word, words, 0, pivot);
		} else if(word.compareTo(words[pivot]) > 0) {
			return bsearch(word, words, pivot, b);
		}

		return pivot;
	}

	public static void main(String [] args) throws IOException {
		BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));

		String [] words = new String[10];
		for(int i=0; i<10; i++) {
			System.out.print("words["+i+"]: ");
			words[i] = br.readLine();
		}

		sort(words);
		for(int i=0; i<10; i++) {
			System.out.println("words["+i+"] = " + words[i]);
		}

		System.out.print("Enter word to search for: ");
		String word = br.readLine();

		int index = bsearch(word, words, 0, words.length);
		if(index < 0) {
			System.out.println("not found");
		} else {
			System.out.println("found at index " + index);
		}
	}
}