I'm not very familiar with Big O notation. I'm wondering does the time complexity of the nested loop always be n^2? For example the following function, the inner loop runs 100 times per loop, does it be considered as n times as well? What's the time complexity of this function?
int abc(int x) {
for (int i=0; i<x; i++) {
for (int j=0; j<100; j++) {
push to stack;
}
}
return 0;
}
Big O notation shows how the performance scales with input size. The inner loop is not at all affected by any change in input size, so it is not reflected in the time complexity: this code is O(N), where N is the size of x.
If a statement is executed 100 times or 1000 times, the total cost for that statement is O(1).
In the given program, the outer loop has x iterations, and each iteration costs O(1). So the total cost is O(x).
Related
int cnt = 0;
for (int i = 1; i < n; i++) {
for (int j = i; j < n; j++) {
for (int k = j * j; k < n; k++) {
++cnt;
}
}
}
I have no idea of it.
How to analyze the time complexity of it?
It's easy to see that the code is Omega(n²) (that is, is at least quadratic) - the two outer loops execute around n²/2 times.
The inner k loop executes zero times unless j is less than sqrt(n). Even though it executes zero times, it takes some computation to compute the conditions for the loop, so it's O(1) work in these cases.
When j is less than sqrt(n), i must also be less than sqrt(n), since by the construction of the loops, j is always greater than or equal to i. In these cases, the k loop does n-j² iterations. We can construct a bound for the total amount of work in this inner loop in these cases: both i and j are less than sqrt(n), and there's at worst O(n) work done in the k loop, so there's at most O(n²) (ie: sqrt(n) * sqrt(n) * n) total work done in the inner loop.
There's also at most O(n²) total work done for the cases where the inner loop is trivial (ie: when j>sqrt(n)).
This gives a proof that the runtime complexity of the code is θ(n²).
Methods involving looking at nested loops individually and constructing big-O bounds for them do not in general give tight bounds, and this is an example question where such a method fails.
The first approach would be to look at the loops separately, meaning that we have three O(.) that are connected by a product. Hence,
Complexity of the Algorithm = O(OuterLoop)*O(MiddleLoop)*O(InnerLoop)
Now look at each loop separately:
Outerloop: This is the most simple one. Incrementing from 1 to n, resulting in O(n)
Middleloop: This is non-obvious, the terminate condition of the loop is still n, but the starting iterator value is i, meaning that the larger i gets, less time it will take to finish the loop. But this factor is quadratical-asymptotically only a constant, meaning that it is still O(n), hence O(n^2) "until" the second loop.
Inner loop: We see, that the iterator increases quadratically. But we also see that the quadratic-increasing depends on the second loop, which we said to be O(n). Since, we again only look at the complexity asymptomatically, means that we can assume that j rises linearly, and since k rises quadratically until n, it will take \square(n) iterations until n is reached. Meaning that the inner most loop has a running time of O(\square(n)).
Putting all these results together,
O(n * n* square(n))=O(n^2*square(n))
I am wondering how one would find the Big-Oh complexity of an algorithm if the for loops loop over both n and some specified integer. For example, what would be the complexity of a function such as this one:
for (int i=0; i < n; i++) {
for (int j=0; j < 100; j++) {
for (int k=0; k < n; k++) {
// Some O(1) operation here.
}
}
}
Now, I know that both the outer and most-inner for loops have complexity O(n), but what is the complexity of the middle loop? O(100), would that reduce to O(1)?
Yes it will be O(1) for the middle one only. That means no matter what my input n is it doesn't matter it will run 100 times. You can't make it loop more.
But the outermost and inner most they are dependent on n. If n is 100 then ouermost runs 100 times if it is 1000000 then yes it runs 1000000 times.
What about inner most loop. For each iteration of outermost it runs 100*n times. So in total it will run even more 100*n*n times.
Now think how much total work they do?
100n^2+100n+n = An^2+B
O(n^2) will be the time complexity.
Is O(10) or O(100) and O(100000) same?
Okay I will save you from writing more for any Constant C O(C) is equivalent to O(1).
Here C was 10 or 100 or 100000.
I want to know the time complexity of following piece of code
for (i = 0; i < n; i++) {
for (j = i + 1; j < n; j++) {
printf("hi")
}
}
Time complexity in loop
http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/analysis-of-algorithms-set-4-analysis-of-loops/
http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/analysis-of-algorithms-set-4-analysis-of-loops/
i think following link is used full for this problem :)
Time complexity is nothing but the number of instructions executed in your program. Now, in your program you have two loops. Outer loop will iterate i=0 to i=N-1, which is total of N instructions that is O(N). Since you also have a inner loop which will again iterate from j=i+1 to j=N-1 for each i.
Hence, time complexity will be O(N^2).
At each iteration of the inner loop work done is a follows
n
n-1
n-2
....
...
1
So total work done will be n+(n-1)+(n-2)+...+...+1, which turn out to be the sum of n natural numbers i.e n*(n+1)/2 so time complexity is O(n^2). As no auxiliary space is used so space complexity is O(1)
I have this code :
int fun(int n)
{
int count = 0;
for (int i = n; i > 0; i /= 2)
for (int j = 0; j < i; j++)
count += 1;
return count;
}
The time complexity of this code can be thought of as O(n) because O(n+n/2+n/4+...) = O(n)
By that logic, the time complexity of this snippet can also be argued to be O(n) :
for(i = 1; i < n; i *= 2)
//O(1) statements
Since O(1+2+4+..+n/4+n/2) = O(n). But since the loop runs log(n) times, it can be log(n) too.
Why is the former one not : log(n) times the outer loop * log(n) times the inner loop so, log(n)log(n)
What am I doing wrong ?
The first snippet has the outer loop that executes O(log n) times, and each iteration the inner loop executes O(i) times. If you sum any number of terms of the form n / 2^k, you'll get O(n).
The second piece of code has O(log n) iterations of O(1) operations, and sum of logarithmic amount of constants is still logarithmic.
In the first example, you don't have an O(1) statement inside your loop, as you have for (int j = 0; j < i; j++) count += 1. If in your second example you put the same inner loop of the first example, you are back to the same complexity. The first loop is not O(n*log(n)); this is easy to demonstrate because you can find an upper bound in O(2n) which is equivalent to O(n).
The time complexity of the 2nd one should not be calculated as a series O(1+2+4+..+n/4+n/2) = O(n), because it is not that series.
Notice the first one. It is being calculated as a series because one counts the number of times the inner for loop executes and then add all of them (series) to get the final time complexity.
When i=n inner for loop executes n times
When i=(n/2) inner for loop executes n/2 times
When i=(n/4) inner for loop executes n/4 times
and so on..
But in the second one, there is no series to add. It just comes to a formula (2^x) = n, which evaluates to x = logn.
(2^x) = n this formula can be obtained by noticing that i starts with 1, and when it becomes 2 it is multiplied by 2 until it reaches n.
So one needs to find out how many times 2 needs to be multiplied by 2 to reach n.
Thus the formula (2^x) = n, and then solve for x.
I am trying to figure out the complexity of a for loop using Big O notation. I have done this before in my other classes, but this one is more rigorous than the others because it is on the actual algorithm. The code is as follows:
for(cnt = 0, i=1; i<=n; i++) //for any size n
{
for(j = 1; j <= i; j++)
{
cnt++;
}
}
AND
for(cnt = 0, i=1; i<=n; i*=2) //for any size n
{
for(j = 1; j <= i; j++)
{
cnt++;
}
}
I have arrived that the first loop is of O(n) complexity because it is going through the list n times. As for the second loop I am a little lost. I believe that it is going through the loop i times for each n that is tested. I have (incorrectly) assumed that this means that the loop is O(n*i) for each time it is evaluated. Is there anything that I'm missing in my assumption. I know that cnt++ is constant time.
Thank you for the help in the analysis. Each loop is in its own space, they are not together.
The outer loop of the first example executes n times. For each iteration of the outer loop, the inner loop gets executed i times, so the overall complexity can be calculated as follows: one for the first iteration plus two for the second iteration plus three for the third iteration and so on, plus n for the n-th iteration.
1+2+3+4+5+...+n = (n*(n-1))/2 --> O(n^2)
The second example is trickier: since i doubles every iteration, the outer loop executes only Log2(n) times. Assuming that n is a power of 2, the total for the inner loop is
1+2+4+8+16+...+n
which is 2^Log2(n)-1 = n-1 for the complexity O(n).
For ns that are not powers of two the exact number of iterations is (2^(Log2(n)+1))-1, which is still O(n):
1 -> 1
2..3 -> 3
4..7 -> 7
8..15 -> 15
16..31 -> 31
32..63 -> 63
and so on.
Hopefully this isn't homework, but I do see that you at least made an attempt here, so here's my take on this:
cnt is incremented n*(n+1)/2 times, which makes the entire set of both loops O(n^2). The second loop is O(n/2) on the average, which is O(n).
The first example is O(N^2) and What is the Big-O of a nested loop, where number of iterations in the inner loop is determined by the current iteration of the outer loop? would be the question that answers that where the key is to note that the inner loop's number of rounds is dependent on n.
The second example is likely O(n log n) since the outer loop is being incremented on a different scale than linear. Look at binary search for an example of a logarithmic complexity case. In the second example, the outer loop is O(log n) and the inner loop is O(n) which combine to give a O(n log n) complexity.