Leetcode•Apr 01, 2026
Find Minimum in Rotated Sorted Array
Hazrat Ali
Leetcode
Suppose an array of length n sorted in ascending order is rotated between 1 and n times. For example, the array nums = [0,1,2,4,5,6,7] might become:
[4,5,6,7,0,1,2]if it was rotated4times.[0,1,2,4,5,6,7]if it was rotated7times.
Notice that rotating an array [a[0], a[1], a[2], ..., a[n-1]] 1 time results in the array [a[n-1], a[0], a[1], a[2], ..., a[n-2]].
Given the sorted rotated array nums of unique elements, return the minimum element of this array.
You must write an algorithm that runs in O(log n) time.
Example 1:
Input: nums = [3,4,5,1,2] Output: 1 Explanation: The original array was [1,2,3,4,5] rotated 3 times.
Example 2:
Input: nums = [4,5,6,7,0,1,2] Output: 0 Explanation: The original array was [0,1,2,4,5,6,7] and it was rotated 4 times.
Example 3:
Input: nums = [11,13,15,17] Output: 11 Explanation: The original array was [11,13,15,17] and it was rotated 4 times.
Solution
var findMin = function(nums) {
let left = 0, right = nums.length - 1;
while (left < right) {
let mid = Math.floor((left + right) / 2);
if (nums[mid] > nums[right]) {
left = mid + 1;
} else {
right = mid;
}
}
return nums[left];
};