Question

I have been trying to calculate the Big-O of the following algorithm and it is coming out to be O(n^5) for me. I don't know what the correct answer is but most of my colleagues are getting O(n^3).

for(i=1;i<=n;i++)
{
    for(j=1 ; j <= i*i ; j++)
    {
        for(k=1 ; k<= n/2 ; k++) 
        {
        x = y + z;
        }
     }
}

What I did was start from the innermost loop. So I calculated that the innermost loop will run n/2 times, then I went to the second nested for loop which will run i^2 times and from the outermost loop will run i times as i varies from 1 to n. This would mean that the second nested for loop will run a total of Sigma(i^2) from i=1 to i=n so a total of n*(n+1)*(2n+1)/6 times. So the total amount that the code would run came out to be in the order of n^5 so I concluded that the order must be O(n^5). Is there something wrong with this approach and the answer that I calculated?

I have just started with DSA and this was my first assignment so apologies for any basic mistakes that I might have made.

Was it helpful?

Solution

for(i=1;i<=n;i++)
{
    for(j=1 ; j <= i*i ; j++)
    {
        for(k=1 ; k<= n/2 ; k++) 
        {
        x = y + z;
        }
     }
}

The triple-nested loop is equivalent to the summation $$\sum_{i=1}^{n}\sum_{j=1}^{i^2} \sum_{k=1}^{n/2} 1$$ $$=\frac{n}{2}(\sum_{i=1}^{n}\sum_{j=1}^{i^2}1)$$ $$=\frac{n}{2}(\sum_{i=1}^{n}i^2)$$ $$=\frac{n}{2} \cdot (\frac{1}{6}n(n+1)(2n+1))$$ $$=O(n^4)$$


In terms of actual code efficiency, since x=y+z is invariant in the loop, any good optimizing compiler will extract the statement out of the loop (in compiler-speak, hoist the statement to loop preheader), hence making the compiled code run in $O(1)$.

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