Given a list of lists, i.e.
[[1,2,3],[4,5,6],[7,8,9]]:
What is the time complexity of using nested For loops to see if each numeral from 1-9 is used once and only once? Furthermore, what would be the time complexity if the input is now a singular combined list, i.e. [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]?
What really matters is the size of the input, not the format. Either you have a list of 9 elements or 9 lists with 1 element, you still have 9 elements to be checked in the worst case.
The answer to the question, as stated, would be O(1), because you have a constant size input.
If what you mean is something like Given N elements what is the time complexity of checking if all number between 1 and N are present, then it would take linear time, i.e., O(N).
Indeed, an option is to use a hash table (e.g., a python set) and check if the element is already in the set, if not adding it. Note that in using this specific option you would get an expected (but not guaranteed, due to potential collisions) linear time complexity algorithm.
Related
I have an extremely pedantic question on big-O notation that I would like some opinions on. One of my uni subjects states “Best O(1) if their first element is the same” for a question on checking if two lists have a common element.
My qualm with this is that it does not describe the function on the entire domain of large inputs, rather the restricted domain of large inputs that have two lists with the same first element. Does it make sense to describe a function by only talking about a subset of that function’s domain? Of course, when restricted to that domain, the time complexity is omega(1), O(1) and therefore theta(1), but this isn’t describing the original function. From my understanding it would be more correct to say the entire function is bounded by omega(1). (and O(m*n) where m, n are the sizes of the two input lists).
What do all of you think?
It is perfectly correct to discuss cases (as you correctly point out, a case is a subset of the function's domain) and bounds on the runtime of algorithms in those cases (Omega, Oh or Theta). Whether or not it's useful is a harder question and one that is very situation-dependent. I'd generally think that Omega-bounds on the best case, Oh-bounds on the worst case and Theta bounds (on the "universal" case of all inputs, when such a bound exists) are the most "useful". But calling the subset of inputs where the first elements of each collection are the same, the "best case", seems like reasonable usage. The "best case" for bubble sort is the subset of inputs which are pre-sorted arrays, and is bound by O(n), better than unmodified merge sort's best-case bound.
Fundamentally, big-O notation is a way of talking about how some quantity scales. In CS we so often see it used for talking about algorithm runtimes that we forget that all the following are perfectly legitimate use cases for it:
The area of a circle of radius r is O(r2).
The volume of a sphere of radius r is O(r3).
The expected number of 2’s showing after rolling n dice is O(n).
The minimum number of 2’s showing after rolling n dice is O(1).
The number of strings made of n pairs of balanced parentheses is O(4n).
With that in mind, it’s perfectly reasonable to use big-O notation to talk about how the behavior of an algorithm in a specific family of cases will scale. For example, we could say the following:
The time required to sort a sequence of n already-sorted elements with insertion sort is O(n). (There are other, non-sorted sequences where it takes longer.)
The time required to run a breadth-first search of a tree with n nodes is O(n). (In a general graph, this could be larger if the number of edges were larger.)
The time required to insert n items in sorted order into an initially empty binary heap is On). (This can be Θ(n log n) for a sequence of elements that is reverse-sorted.)
In short, it’s perfectly fine to use asymptotic notation to talk about restricted subcases of an algorithm. More generally, it’s fine to use asymptotic notation to describe how things grow as long as you’re precise about what you’re quantifying. See #Patrick87’s answer for more about whether to use O, Θ, Ω, etc. when doing so.
I just started learning about Hash Dictionaries. Currently we are implementing a hash dictionary with separate buckets that are made of chains (linked lists). The book posed this problem and I am having a lot of trouble figuring it out. Imagine we have an initial table size of 10 ie 10 buckets. If we want to know the time complexity for n insertions and a single lookup, how do we figure this out? (Assuming a pointer access is one unit of time).
It poses three scenarios:
A hash dictionary that does not resize, what is the time complexity for n insertions and 1 lookup?
A hash dictionary that resizes by 1 when the load factor exceeds .8, what is the time complexity for n insertions and 1 lookup?
A hash dictionary that resizes by doubling the table size when the load factor exceeds .8, what is the time complexity for n insertions and 1 lookup?
MY initial thoughts had me really confused. I couldn't quite figure out how to know the length of some given chain for an insertion. Assuming k length (I thought), there is the pointer access of the for loop going through the whole chain so k units of time. Then, in each iteration to insert it checks if the current node's data is equivalent to the key trying to be inserted (if it exists, overwrite it) so either 2k units of time if not found, 2k+1 if found. Then, it does 5 pointer accesses to prepend some element. So, 2k+5 or 2k+1 to insert 1 time. Thus, O(kn) for the first scenario for n insertions. To lookup, it seems to be 2k+1 or 2k. So for 1 lookup, o(k). I don't have a clue how to approach the other two scenarios. Some help would be great. Once again to clarify: k isn't mentioned in the problem. The only facts given are an initial size of 10 and the information given in the scenarios, so k can't be used as the results for the time complexity of n insertions or 1 lookup.
if you have a hash dictionary then your insert, delete and search operation will take O(n) of Time-Complexity for 1 key in the worst case scenario. For n insertions it would be O(n^2). It doesn't matter what the size of your table is.
|--------|
|element1| -> element2 -> element3 -> element4 -> element5
|--------|
| null |
|--------|
| null |
|--------|
| null |
|--------|
| null |
|--------|
Now for Average Case
Scenario one will have the load factor fixed (assuming m slots) : n/m. Therefore, one insert function will be O(1+n/m). 1 for the hash function computation and n/m for the lookup.
For the 2nd and 3rd scenario it should be O(1+n/m+1) and O(1+n/2m) respectively.
For your confusion, you can ask yourself a question that what will be the expected chain length for any random set of keys. The solution will be that we can't be sure at all.
That's where the idea of load factor comes into place to define the average case scenario, we give each slot equal probability to form a chain, if our no. of keys is greater than the slot count.
Imagine we have an initial table size of 10 ie 10 buckets. If we want to know the time complexity for n insertions and a single lookup, how do we figure this out?
When we talk about time complexity, we're looking at the steepness of the n-vs-time-for-operation curve as n approaches infinity. In the case above, you're saying there are only ten buckets, so - assuming the hash function scatters the insertions across the buckets with near-uniform distribution (as it should), n insertions will result in 10 lists of roughly n/10 elements.
During each insertion, you can hash to the correct bucket in O(1) time. Now - a crucial factor here is whether you want your hash table implementation to protect you against duplicate insertions.
If you simply trust there will be no duplicates, or the hash table is allowed to have duplicates (e.g. C++'s unordered_multiset), then the insertion itself can be done without inspecting the existing bucket content, at an accessible end of the bucket's list (i.e. using a head or tail pointer), also in O(1) time. That means the overall time per insertion is O(1), and the total time for n insertions is O(n).
If the implementation much identify and avoid duplicates, then for each insertion it has to search along the existing linked list, the size of which is related to n by a constant #buckets factor (1/10) and varies linearly during insertion from 1 to 1/10 of the final number of elements, so on average is n/2/10 which - removing constant factors - simplifies to n. In other words, each insertion is O(n).
Presumably the question intends to ask the time for a single lookup done after all elements are inserted: in that case you have the 10 linked lists of ~n/10 length, so the lookup will hash to one of those lists and then on average have to look half way along the list before finding the desired value: that's roughly n/20 elements searched, but as /20 is a constant factor it can be dropped, and we can say the average complexity is O(n).
A hash dictionary that does not resize, what is the time complexity for n insertions and 1 lookup?
Well, we discussed that above with our hash table size stuck at 10.
A hash dictionary that resizes by 1 when the load factor exceeds .8, what is the time complexity for n insertions and 1 lookup?
Say the table has 100 buckets and 80 elements, you insert an 81st element, it resizes to 101, the load factor is then about .802 - should it immediately resize again, or wait until doing another insertion? Anyway, ignoring that -each resize operation involves visiting, rehashing (unless the elements or nodes cache the hash values), and "rewiring" the linked lists for all existing elements: that's O(s) where s is the size of the table at that point in time. And you're doing that once or twice (depending on your answer to "immediately resize again" behaviour above) for s values from 1 to n, so s averages n/2, which simplifies to n. The insertion itself may or may not involve another iteration of the bucket's linked list (you could optimise to search while resizing). Regardless the overall time complexity is O(n2).
The lookup then takes O(1), because the resizing has kept the load factor below a constant amount (i.e. the average linked list length is very, very short (even ignoring the empty buckets).
A hash dictionary that resizes by doubling the table size when the load factor exceeds .8, what is the time complexity for n insertions and 1 lookup?
If you consider the resultant hash table there with n elements inserted, about half the elements will have been inserted without needing to be rehashed, while for about a quarter, they'll have been rehashed once, and an eight rehashed twice, a sixteenth rehashed 3 times, a 32nd rehashed 4 times: if you sum up that series - 1/4 + 2/8 + 3/16 + 4/32 + 5/64 + 6/128... - the series approaches 1 as n goes to infinity. In other words, the average amount of repeated rehashing/linking work done per element in the final table size doesn't increase with n - it's constant. So, the total time to insert is simply O(n). Then because the load factor is kept below 0.8 - a constant rather than a function of n - the lookup time is O(1).
What would be the worst case time complexity for finding a key that appears twice in the sorted array using binary search? I know that the worst case time complexity for binary search on a sorted array is O(log n). So, in the case that the key appears more than once the time complexity should be lesser than O(log n). However, I am not sure how to calculate this.
In the worst case the binary search needs to perform ⌊log_2(n) + 1⌋ iterations to find the element or to conclude that the element is not in the array.
By having a duplicate you might just need one step less.
For instance, suppose your duplicate elements appear in the first and second indices of the array (same if they are in the last and one before the last).
In such a case you would have ⌊log_2(n)⌋ comparisons, thus, still O(log(n)) as a worst case time complexity.
In Big-Oh notation, what does n mean? I've seen input size and length of a vector. If it's input size, does it mean memory space on the computer? I see n often interchangeably used with input size.
Examples of Big-Oh,
O(n) is linear running time
O(logn) is logarithmic running time.
A code complexity analysis example, (I'm changing input n to m)
def factorial(m):
product = 1
for i in range(1, m+1):
product = product*i
return product
This is O(n). What does n mean? Is it how much memory it takes? Maybe n mean number of elements in a vector? Then, how do you explain when n=3, a single number?
When somebody says O(n), the n can refer to different things depending on context. When it isn't obvious what n refers to, people ideally point it out explicitly, but several conventions exist:
When the name of the variable(s) used in the O-notation also exist in the code, they almost certainly refer to the value of the variable with that name (if they refer to anything else, that should be pointed out explicitly). So in your original example where you had a variable named n, O(n) would refer to that variable.
When the code does not contain a variable named n and n is the only variable used in the O notation, n usually refers to the total size of the input.
When multiple variables are used, starting with n and then continuing the alphabet (e.g. O(n*m)), n usually refers to the size of the first parameter, m the second and so on. However, in my opinion, it's often clearer to use something like | | or len( ) around the actual parameter names instead (e.g. O(|l1| * |l2|) or O(len(l1) * len(l2)) if your parameters are called l1 and l2).
In the context of graph problems v is usually used to refer to the number of vertices and e to the number of edges.
In all other cases (and also in some of the above cases if there is any ambiguity), it should be explicitly mentioned what the variables mean.
In your original code you had a variable named n, so the statement "This is O(n)" almost certainly referred to the value of the parameter n. If we further assume that we're only counting the number of multiplications or the number of times the loop body executes (or we measure the time and pretend that multiplication takes constant time), that statement is correct.
In your edited code, there is no longer a variable named n. So now the statement "This is O(n)" must refer to something else. Usually one would then assume that it refers to the size of the input (which would be the number of bits in m, i.e. log m). But then the statement is blatantly false (it'd be O(2^n), not O(n)), so the original statement clearly referred to the value of n and you broke it by editing the code.
n usually means amount of input data.
For example, take an array of 10 elements. To iterate all elements you will need ten iterations. n is 10 in this case.
In your example n is also value which describes size of input data. As you can see your factorial implementation will require n+1 iterations so the asymptotic complexity for this implementation is around O(n) (NOTE: I omitted 1 since it doesn't change picture a lot). If you will increase passed variable n to your function it will require more iteration to perform for calculating result.
O(1) describes an algorithm that will always execute in the same time (or space) regardless of the size of the input data set.
O(N) describes an algorithm whose performance will grow linearly and in direct proportion to the size of the input data set.
O(N^2) represents an algorithm whose performance is directly proportional to the square of the size of the input data set. This is common with algorithms that involve nested iterations over the data set.
I hope this helps.
Ive always been a bit confused on this, possibly due to my lack of understanding in compilers. But lets use python as an example. If we had some large list of numbers called numlist and wanted to get rid of any duplicates, we could use a set operator on the list, example set(numlist). In return we would have a set of our numbers. This operation to the best of my knowledge will be done in O(n) time. Though if I were to create my own algorithm to handle this operation, the absolute best I could ever hope for is O(n^2).
What I don't get is, what allows a internal operation like set() to be so much faster then an external to the language algorithm. The checking still needs to be done, don't they?
You can do this in Θ(n) average time using a hash table. Lookup and insertion in a hash table are Θ(1) on average . Thus, you just run through the n items and for each one checking if it is already in the hash table and if not inserting the item.
What I don't get is, what allows a internal operation like set() to be so much faster then an external to the language algorithm. The checking still needs to be done, don't they?
The asymptotic complexity of an algorithm does not change if implemented by the language implementers versus being implemented by a user of the language. As long as both are implemented in a Turing complete language with random access memory models they have the same capabilities and algorithms implemented in each will have the same asymptotic complexity. If an algorithm is theoretically O(f(n)) it does not matter if it is implemented in assembly language, C#, or Python on it will still be O(f(n)).
You can do this in O(n) in any language, basically as:
# Get min and max values O(n).
min = oldList[0]
max = oldList[0]
for i = 1 to oldList.size() - 1:
if oldList[i] < min:
min = oldList[i]
if oldList[i] > max:
max = oldList[i]
# Initialise boolean list O(n)
isInList = new boolean[max - min + 1]
for i = min to max:
isInList[i] = false
# Change booleans for values in old list O(n)
for i = 0 to oldList.size() - 1:
isInList[oldList[i] - min] = true
# Create new list from booleans O(n) (or O(1) based on integer range).
newList = []
for i = min to max:
if isInList[i - min]:
newList.append (i)
I'm assuming here that append is an O(1) operation, which it should be unless the implementer was brain-dead. So with k steps each O(n), you still have an O(n) operation.
Whether the steps are explicitly done in your code or whether they're done under the covers of a language is irrelevant. Otherwise you could claim that the C qsort was one operation and you now have the holy grail of an O(1) sort routine :-)
As many people have discovered, you can often trade off space complexity for time complexity. For example, the above only works because we're allowed to introduce the isInList and newList variables. If this were not allowed, the next best solution may be sorting the list (probably no better the O(n log n)) followed by an O(n) (I think) operation to remove the duplicates.
An extreme example, you can use that same extra-space method to sort an arbitrary number of 32-bit integers (say with each only having 255 or less duplicates) in O(n) time, provided you can allocate about four billion bytes for storing the counts.
Simply initialise all the counts to zero and run through each position in your list, incrementing the count based on the number at that position. That's O(n).
Then start at the beginning of the list and run through the count array, placing that many of the correct value in the list. That's O(1), with the 1 being about four billion of course but still constant time :-)
That's also O(1) space complexity but a very big "1". Typically trade-offs aren't quite that severe.
The complexity bound of an algorithm is completely unrelated to whether it is implemented 'internally' or 'externally'
Taking a list and turning it into a set through set() is O(n).
This is because set is implemented as a hash set. That means that to check if something is in the set or to add something to the set only takes O(1), constant time. Thus, to make a set from an iterable (like a list for example), you just start with an empty set and add the elements of the iterable one by one. Since there are n elements and each insertion takes O(1), the total time of converting an iterable to a set is O(n).
To understand how the hash implementation works, see the wikipedia artcle on hash tables
Off hand I can't think of how to do this in O(n), but here is the cool thing:
The difference between n^2 and n is sooo massive that the difference between you implementing it and python implementing is tiny compared to the algorithm used to implement it. n^2 is always worse than O(n), even if the n^2 one is in C and the O(n) one is in python. You should never think that kind of difference comes from the fact that you're not writing in a low level language.
That said, if you want to implement your own, you can do a sort then remove dups. the sort is n*ln(n) and the remove dups in O(n)...
There are two issues here.
Time complexity (which is expressed in big O notation) is a formal measure of how long an algorithm takes to run for a given set size. It's more about how well an algorithm scales than about the absolute speed.
The actual speed (say, in milliseconds) of an algorithm is the time complexity multiplied by a constant (in an ideal world).
Two people could implement the same removal of duplicates algorithm with O(log(n)*n) complexity, but if one writes it in Python and the other writes it in optimised C, then the C program will be faster.