What is a characteristic of linear search algorithms?

The characteristic of linear search algorithms is that they search through one item at a time. This means that the algorithm starts at the beginning of a data structure and examines each element sequentially until it finds the target value or reaches the end of the structure. This method is straightforward and does not require the data to be sorted, allowing it to be applied to any list or array, regardless of its order.

The linear search's simplicity makes it easy to implement, but this approach inherently involves checking each individual element in a potentially large dataset, which can lead to inefficiencies in terms of time, especially compared to more advanced methods like binary search, which only operates on sorted data and utilizes a divide-and-conquer strategy. Additionally, linear search does not necessitate prior knowledge of the data structure's size, as it can handle dynamically sized collections.