What is the worst-case time complexity of searching for an element in a sorted a
Practice Questions
Q1
What is the worst-case time complexity of searching for an element in a sorted array using binary search?
O(n)
O(log n)
O(n log n)
O(1)
Questions & Step-by-Step Solutions
What is the worst-case time complexity of searching for an element in a sorted array using binary search?
Step 1: Understand what binary search is. It is a method to find an element in a sorted array by repeatedly dividing the search interval in half.
Step 2: Know that in binary search, you start with the entire array and check the middle element.
Step 3: If the middle element is the target, you are done. If the target is less than the middle element, you search the left half; if greater, you search the right half.
Step 4: Each time you check the middle element, you reduce the size of the array you are searching by half.
Step 5: The process of halving continues until you either find the element or the search interval is empty.
Step 6: The number of times you can halve the array is logarithmic in relation to the size of the array, which is expressed as log base 2 of n (log n).
Step 7: Therefore, the worst-case time complexity of binary search is O(log n), meaning it takes logarithmic time relative to the number of elements in the array.
