In theoretical computer science, the time complexity is the computational complexity that describes the amount of computer time it takes to run an algorithm. Time complexity is commonly estimated by counting the number of elementary operations performed by the algorithm, supposing that each elementary operation takes a fixed amount of time to perform. Thus, the amount of time taken and the number of elementary operations performed by the algorithm are taken to be related by a constant factor.
Since an algorithm's running time may vary among different inputs of the same size, one commonly considers the worst-case time complexity, which is the maximum amount of time required for inputs of a given size. Less common, and usually specified explicitly, is the average-case complexity, which is the average of the time taken on inputs of a given size (this makes sense because there are only a finite number of possible inputs of a given size). In both cases, the time complexity is generally expressed as a function of the size of the input. Since this function is generally difficult to compute exactly, and the running time for small inputs is usually not consequential, one commonly focuses on the behavior of the complexity when the input size increases—that is, the asymptotic behavior of the complexity. Therefore, the time complexity is commonly expressed using big O notation, typically etc., where is the size in units of bits needed to represent the input.
Algorithmic complexities are classified according to the type of function appearing in the big O notation. For example, an algorithm with time complexity
O(n)
O(n\alpha)
\alpha>0
The following table summarizes some classes of commonly encountered time complexities. In the table,, i.e., polynomial in x.
Name | Time complexity | Examples of running times | Example algorithms | |||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
constant time | O(1) | 10 | Finding the median value in a sorted array of numbers. Calculating . | |||||||||||||||
inverse Ackermann time | Ol(\alpha(n)r) | Amortized time per operation using a disjoint set | ||||||||||||||||
iterated logarithmic time | O(log*n) | Distributed coloring of cycles | ||||||||||||||||
log-logarithmic | O(loglogn) | Amortized time per operation using a bounded priority queue[1] | ||||||||||||||||
logarithmic time | O(logn) | logn log(n2) | Binary search | |||||||||||||||
polylogarithmic time | poly(logn) | (logn)2 | ||||||||||||||||
fractional power | O(nc) 0<c<1 |
| Range searching in a k-d tree | |||||||||||||||
linear time | O(n) | , 2n+5 | Finding the smallest or largest item in an unsorted array. Kadane's algorithm. Linear search. | |||||||||||||||
"n log-star n" time | O(nlog*n) | Seidel's polygon triangulation algorithm. | ||||||||||||||||
linearithmic time | O(nlogn) | nlogn logn! | Fastest possible comparison sort. Fast Fourier transform. | |||||||||||||||
quasilinear time | npoly(logn) | nlog2n | Multipoint polynomial evaluation | |||||||||||||||
quadratic time | O(n2) | n2 | Bubble sort. Insertion sort. Direct convolution | |||||||||||||||
cubic time | O(n3) | n3 | Naive multiplication of two n x n | |||||||||||||||
polynomial time | 2O(log=poly(n) | n2+n n10 | Karmarkar's algorithm for linear programming. AKS primality test[2] [3] | |||||||||||||||
quasi-polynomial time | QP | 2poly(log | nlog nlog | Best-known -approximation algorithm for the directed Steiner tree problem, best known parity game solver,[4] best known graph isomorphism algorithm | ||||||||||||||
sub-exponential time (first definition) | SUBEXP |
) \epsilon>0 | Contains BPP unless EXPTIME (see below) equals MA. | |||||||||||||||
sub-exponential time (second definition) | 2o(n) | 2\sqrt[3]{n | Best classical algorithm for integer factorizationformerly-best algorithm for graph isomorphism | |||||||||||||||
exponential time (with linear exponent) | 2O(n) | 1.1n 10n | Solving the traveling salesman problem using dynamic programming | |||||||||||||||
factorial time | O(n)!=2O(n | n!,nn,2n | Solving the traveling salesman problem via brute-force search | |||||||||||||||
exponential time | 2poly(n) | 2n
| Solving matrix chain multiplication via brute-force search | |||||||||||||||
double exponential time |
|
| Deciding the truth of a given statement in Presburger arithmetic |
An algorithm is said to be constant time (also written as time) if the value of (the complexity of the algorithm) is bounded by a value that does not depend on the size of the input. For example, accessing any single element in an array takes constant time as only one operation has to be performed to locate it. In a similar manner, finding the minimal value in an array sorted in ascending order; it is the first element. However, finding the minimal value in an unordered array is not a constant time operation as scanning over each element in the array is needed in order to determine the minimal value. Hence it is a linear time operation, taking time. If the number of elements is known in advance and does not change, however, such an algorithm can still be said to run in constant time.
Despite the name "constant time", the running time does not have to be independent of the problem size, but an upper bound for the running time has to be independent of the problem size. For example, the task "exchange the values of and if necessary so that " is called constant time even though the time may depend on whether or not it is already true that . However, there is some constant such that the time required is always at most .
An algorithm is said to take logarithmic time when
T(n)=O(logn)
logan
logbn
O(logn)
Algorithms taking logarithmic time are commonly found in operations on binary trees or when using binary search.
An
O(logn)
An example of logarithmic time is given by dictionary search. Consider a dictionary which contains entries, sorted in alphabetical order. We suppose that, for
1\lek\len
D(k)
D\left(\left\lfloor
n | |
2 |
\right\rfloor\right)
\lfloor \rfloor
w=D\left(\left\lfloor
n | |
2 |
\right\rfloor\right)
w<D\left(\left\lfloor
n | |
2 |
\right\rfloor\right)
An algorithm is said to run in polylogarithmic time if its time
T(n)
Ol((logn)kr)
O(logkn)
For example, matrix chain ordering can be solved in polylogarithmic time on a parallel random-access machine,[5] and a graph can be determined to be planar in a fully dynamic way in
O(log3n)
An algorithm is said to run in sub-linear time (often spelled sublinear time) if
T(n)=o(n)
The specific term sublinear time algorithm commonly refers to randomized algorithms that sample a small fraction of their inputs and process them efficiently to approximately infer properties of the entire instance.[7] This type of sublinear time algorithm is closely related to property testing and statistics.
Other settings where algorithms can run in sublinear time include:
O(log(n))
An algorithm is said to take linear time, or
O(n)
O(n)
cn
Linear time is the best possible time complexity in situations where the algorithm has to sequentially read its entire input. Therefore, much research has been invested into discovering algorithms exhibiting linear time or, at least, nearly linear time. This research includes both software and hardware methods. There are several hardware technologies which exploit parallelism to provide this. An example is content-addressable memory. This concept of linear time is used in string matching algorithms such as the Boyer–Moore string-search algorithm and Ukkonen's algorithm.
Quasilinear timeT(n)=O(nlogkn)
k=1
\tilde{O}(n)
O(n1+\varepsilon)
\varepsilon>0
nc
c>1
Algorithms which run in quasilinear time include:
O(nlog2n)
O(nlogn)
O(nlogn)
O(nlogn)
O(nlogn)
O(nlogn)
O(nlogn)
In many cases, the
O(nlogn)
\Theta(logn)
O(logn)
O(nlogn)
Comparison sorts require at least
\Omega(nlogn)
log(n!)=\Theta(nlogn)
An algorithm is said to be subquadratic time if
T(n)=o(n2)
For example, simple, comparison-based sorting algorithms are quadratic (e.g. insertion sort), but more advanced algorithms can be found that are subquadratic (e.g. shell sort). No general-purpose sorts run in linear time, but the change from quadratic to sub-quadratic is of great practical importance.
See main article: P (complexity). An algorithm is said to be of polynomial time if its running time is upper bounded by a polynomial expression in the size of the input for the algorithm, that is, for some positive constant k.[11] [12] Problems for which a deterministic polynomial-time algorithm exists belong to the complexity class P, which is central in the field of computational complexity theory. Cobham's thesis states that polynomial time is a synonym for "tractable", "feasible", "efficient", or "fast".[13]
Some examples of polynomial-time algorithms:
An2
O(n2)
These two concepts are only relevant if the inputs to the algorithms consist of integers.
The concept of polynomial time leads to several complexity classes in computational complexity theory. Some important classes defined using polynomial time are the following.
P is the smallest time-complexity class on a deterministic machine which is robust in terms of machine model changes. (For example, a change from a single-tape Turing machine to a multi-tape machine can lead to a quadratic speedup, but any algorithm that runs in polynomial time under one model also does so on the other.) Any given abstract machine will have a complexity class corresponding to the problems which can be solved in polynomial time on that machine.
An algorithm is defined to take superpolynomial time if T(n) is not bounded above by any polynomial. Using little omega notation, it is ω(nc) time for all constants c, where n is the input parameter, typically the number of bits in the input.
For example, an algorithm that runs for 2n steps on an input of size n requires superpolynomial time (more specifically, exponential time).
An algorithm that uses exponential resources is clearly superpolynomial, but some algorithms are only very weakly superpolynomial. For example, the Adleman–Pomerance–Rumely primality test runs for time on n-bit inputs; this grows faster than any polynomial for large enough n, but the input size must become impractically large before it cannot be dominated by a polynomial with small degree.
An algorithm that requires superpolynomial time lies outside the complexity class P. Cobham's thesis posits that these algorithms are impractical, and in many cases they are. Since the P versus NP problem is unresolved, it is unknown whether NP-complete problems require superpolynomial time.
See main article: Quasi-polynomial time. Quasi-polynomial time algorithms are algorithms whose running time exhibits quasi-polynomial growth, a type of behavior that may be slower than polynomial time but yet is significantly faster than exponential time. The worst case running time of a quasi-polynomial time algorithm is
O(logcn) | |
2 |
c=1
c<1
There are some problems for which we know quasi-polynomial time algorithms, but no polynomial time algorithm is known. Such problems arise in approximation algorithms; a famous example is the directed Steiner tree problem, for which there is a quasi-polynomial time approximation algorithm achieving an approximation factor of
O(log3n)
Other computational problems with quasi-polynomial time solutions but no known polynomial time solution include the planted clique problem in which the goal is to find a large clique in the union of a clique and a random graph. Although quasi-polynomially solvable, it has been conjectured that the planted clique problem has no polynomial time solution; this planted clique conjecture has been used as a computational hardness assumption to prove the difficulty of several other problems in computational game theory, property testing, and machine learning.[14]
The complexity class QP consists of all problems that have quasi-polynomial time algorithms. It can be defined in terms of DTIME as follows.
QP=cupcDTIME
logcn | |
\left(2 |
\right)
In complexity theory, the unsolved P versus NP problem asks if all problems in NP have polynomial-time algorithms. All the best-known algorithms for NP-complete problems like 3SAT etc. take exponential time. Indeed, it is conjectured for many natural NP-complete problems that they do not have sub-exponential time algorithms. Here "sub-exponential time" is taken to mean the second definition presented below. (On the other hand, many graph problems represented in the natural way by adjacency matrices are solvable in subexponential time simply because the size of the input is the square of the number of vertices.) This conjecture (for the k-SAT problem) is known as the exponential time hypothesis.[15] Since it is conjectured that NP-complete problems do not have quasi-polynomial time algorithms, some inapproximability results in the field of approximation algorithms make the assumption that NP-complete problems do not have quasi-polynomial time algorithms. For example, see the known inapproximability results for the set cover problem.
The term sub-exponential time is used to express that the running time of some algorithm may grow faster than any polynomial but is still significantly smaller than an exponential. In this sense, problems that have sub-exponential time algorithms are somewhat more tractable than those that only have exponential algorithms. The precise definition of "sub-exponential" is not generally agreed upon,[16] however the two most widely used are below.
A problem is said to be sub-exponential time solvable if it can be solved in running times whose logarithms grow smaller than any given polynomial. More precisely, a problem is in sub-exponential time if for every there exists an algorithm which solves the problem in time O(2nε). The set of all such problems is the complexity class SUBEXP which can be defined in terms of DTIME as follows.[17] [18] [19]
SUBEXP=cap\varepsilon>0
n\varepsilon | |
DTIME\left(2 |
\right)
This notion of sub-exponential is non-uniform in terms of ε in the sense that ε is not part of the input and each ε may have its own algorithm for the problem.
Some authors define sub-exponential time as running times in
2o(n)
It makes a difference whether the algorithm is allowed to be sub-exponential in the size of the instance, the number of vertices, or the number of edges. In parameterized complexity, this difference is made explicit by considering pairs
(L,k)
SUBEPT=DTIME\left(2o(k) ⋅ poly(n)\right).
More precisely, SUBEPT is the class of all parameterized problems
(L,k)
f:\N\to\N
f\ino(k)
2f(k) ⋅ poly(n)
See main article: Exponential time hypothesis.
The exponential time hypothesis (ETH) is that 3SAT, the satisfiability problem of Boolean formulas in conjunctive normal form with at most three literals per clause and with n variables, cannot be solved in time 2o(n). More precisely, the hypothesis is that there is some absolute constant such that 3SAT cannot be decided in time 2cn by any deterministic Turing machine. With m denoting the number of clauses, ETH is equivalent to the hypothesis that kSAT cannot be solved in time 2o(m) for any integer .[24] The exponential time hypothesis implies P ≠ NP.
An algorithm is said to be exponential time, if T(n) is upper bounded by 2poly(n), where poly(n) is some polynomial in n. More formally, an algorithm is exponential time if T(n) is bounded by O(2nk) for some constant k. Problems which admit exponential time algorithms on a deterministic Turing machine form the complexity class known as EXP.
EXP=
cup | ||||
|
nc | |
DTIME\left(2 |
\right)
Sometimes, exponential time is used to refer to algorithms that have T(n) = 2O(n), where the exponent is at most a linear function of n. This gives rise to the complexity class E.
E=cupcDTIME\left(2cn\right)
An algorithm is said to be factorial time if T(n) is upper bounded by the factorial function n!. Factorial time is a subset of exponential time (EXP) because
n!\leqnn=2n=O
n1 | |
\left(2 |
\right)
\epsilon>0
An example of an algorithm that runs in factorial time is bogosort, a notoriously inefficient sorting algorithm based on trial and error. Bogosort sorts a list of n items by repeatedly shuffling the list until it is found to be sorted. In the average case, each pass through the bogosort algorithm will examine one of the n! orderings of the n items. If the items are distinct, only one such ordering is sorted. Bogosort shares patrimony with the infinite monkey theorem.
An algorithm is said to be double exponential time if T(n) is upper bounded by 22poly(n), where poly(n) is some polynomial in n. Such algorithms belong to the complexity class 2-EXPTIME.
2-EXPTIME=cupcDTIME\left(
| |||||
2 |
\right)
Well-known double exponential time algorithms include: