How to pass a vector to a function?

Question

I'm trying to send a vector as an argument to a function and i can't figure out how to make it work. Tried a bunch of different ways but they all give different error messages. I only include part of the code, since it's only this part that doesn't work. (the vector "random" is filled with random, but sorted, values between 0 and 200)

Updated the code:

#include <iostream>     
#include <ctime>        
#include <algorithm>    
#include <vector>       

using namespace std;

int binarySearch(int first, int last, int search4, vector<int>& random);

int main()
{
    vector<int> random(100);

    int search4, found;
    int first = 0;
    int last = 99;

    found = binarySearch(first, last, search4, random);

    system("pause");    
    return(0);      
}

int binarySearch(int first, int last, int search4, vector<int>& random)
{
    do
    {
        int mid = (first + last) / 2;  
        if (search4 > random[mid]) 
            first = mid + 1;  
        else if (search4 < random[mid]) 
            last = mid - 1; 
        else
            return mid;     
    } while (first <= last); 

    return -(first + 1);
}

Answer 1

It depends on if you want to pass the vector as a reference or as a pointer (I am disregarding the option of passing it by value as clearly undesirable).

As a reference:

int binarySearch(int first, int last, int search4, vector<int>& random);

vector<int> random(100);
// ...
found = binarySearch(first, last, search4, random);

As a pointer:

int binarySearch(int first, int last, int search4, vector<int>* random);

vector<int> random(100);
// ...
found = binarySearch(first, last, search4, &random);

Inside binarySearch, you will need to use . or -> to access the members of random correspondingly.

Issues with your current code

1. binarySearch expects a vector<int>*, but you pass in a vector<int> (missing a & before random)
2. You do not dereference the pointer inside binarySearch before using it (for example, random[mid] should be (*random)[mid]
3. You are missing using namespace std; after the <include>s
4. The values you assign to first and last are wrong (should be 0 and 99 instead of random[0] and random[99]