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What is the time complexity of searching for an element in a linked list?
  • a)
    O(1)
  • b)
    O(n)
  • c)
    O(log n)
  • d)
    O(n2)
Correct answer is option 'B'. Can you explain this answer?
Most Upvoted Answer
What is the time complexity of searching for an element in a linked li...
Searching for an element in a linked list takes O(n) time in the worst case, as you may need to traverse the entire list.
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What is the time complexity of searching for an element in a linked li...
Time Complexity of Searching in a Linked List
Searching for an element in a linked list involves traversing through the list from the beginning until the desired element is found. The time complexity of this operation depends on the length of the list and the position of the element being searched for.
  • Best Case Scenario: In the best case scenario, the element being searched for is located at the beginning of the list. In this case, the time complexity would be O(1) as only one comparison is required to find the element.
  • Average Case Scenario: In the average case scenario, the element being searched for is located somewhere in the middle of the list. In this case, the time complexity would be O(n) where n is the number of elements in the list. This is because on average, we would need to traverse through half of the list to find the element.
  • Worst Case Scenario: In the worst case scenario, the element being searched for is located at the end of the list or is not present in the list at all. In this case, the time complexity would still be O(n) as we would need to traverse through the entire list to determine that the element is not there.


Therefore, the time complexity of searching for an element in a linked list is O(n) where n is the number of elements in the list.
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