What is the worst-case time complexity of insertion in a linked list?
Practice Questions
Q1
What is the worst-case time complexity of insertion in a linked list?
O(1)
O(n)
O(log n)
O(n^2)
Questions & Step-by-Step Solutions
What is the worst-case time complexity of insertion in a linked list?
Step 1: Understand what a linked list is. A linked list is a data structure where each element (node) points to the next one.
Step 2: Know that to insert an element, you need to find the right position in the list.
Step 3: If you want to insert at the end of the linked list, you have to start from the beginning and go through each node until you reach the last one.
Step 4: This means you may have to look at every node in the list, which takes time proportional to the number of nodes.
Step 5: If there are 'n' nodes in the linked list, it can take up to 'n' steps to find the end.
Step 6: Therefore, the worst-case time complexity for inserting at the end of a linked list is O(n).