Glossary: Data Structures and Algorithms in Java

Big-O notation

Also written: Big-O

A way of describing how the number of steps a piece of code takes grows as the input size n grows. It drops constants and smaller terms, keeping only the shape of the growth.

Where the book teaches it

Chapter 1: Big-O in plain words

Related terms

Big-O shapes (O(1), O(log n), O(n), O(n log n), O(n²), O(V + E))worst case step