What is the worst-case time complexity of binary search?

₹0.0

Question: What is the worst-case time complexity of binary search?

Options:

Correct Answer: O(log n)

Solution:

In the worst case, binary search still operates in O(log n) time complexity.

What is the worst-case time complexity of binary search?

What is the worst-case time complexity of binary search?

Step 1: Understand what binary search is. It is a method to find an item in a sorted list by repeatedly dividing the search interval in half.
Step 2: Know that binary search starts with the entire list and checks the middle item.
Step 3: If the middle item is the target, the search is done. If not, it decides whether to search the left half or the right half of the list.
Step 4: Each time you check the middle item, you reduce the number of items to search by half.
Step 5: The worst-case scenario occurs when you keep halving the list until you have only one item left to check.
Step 6: The number of times you can halve a list of size n is log base 2 of n, which is written as log(n).
Step 7: Therefore, the worst-case time complexity of binary search is O(log n).

No concepts available.