What is the time complexity of accessing an element in a stack?
Practice Questions
Q1
What is the time complexity of accessing an element in a stack?
O(n)
O(log n)
O(1)
O(n log n)
Questions & Step-by-Step Solutions
What is the time complexity of accessing an element in a stack?
Step 1: Understand what a stack is. A stack is a data structure that follows the Last In, First Out (LIFO) principle, meaning the last element added is the first one to be removed.
Step 2: Identify how elements are accessed in a stack. You can only access the top element directly.
Step 3: Recognize that accessing the top element does not depend on the number of elements in the stack. It is always the same action.
Step 4: Since accessing the top element takes the same amount of time regardless of the stack size, we say it takes constant time.
Step 5: In computer science, constant time is denoted as O(1).
