There's usually a common strategy for "find *" problems - binary search: half the space can be dropped by some rules.
And take care of corner cases.
class Solution { const int INVALID = std::numeric_limits<int>::min(); public: int _findMin(vector<int> &num, int s, int e) { if (s == e) return num[s]; if ((s + 1) == e) { return std::min(num[s], num[e]); // assumption on input } int mid = s + ((e - s) >> 1); if (num[s] <= num[mid] && num[mid + 1] <= num[e]) { if (num[mid] < num[mid + 1]) { return num[s]; } else { return num[mid + 1]; } } else if (num[s] <= num[mid]) { return _findMin(num, mid + 1, e); } else { return _findMin(num, s, mid); } return INVALID; } int findMin(vector<int> &num) { size_t len = num.size(); return _findMin(num, 0, len - 1); } };