Algorithm for merging sets that share at least 2 elements

Question

Given a list of sets:

• S_1 : [ 1, 2, 3, 4 ]
• S_2 : [ 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ]
• S_3 : [ 8, 9, 10, 11 ]
• S_4 : [ 1, 8, 12, 13 ]
• S_5 : [ 6, 7,

Answer 1

I don't see how this can be done in less than O(n^2).

Every set needs to be compared to every other one to see if they contain 2 or more shared elements. That's n*(n-1)/2 comparisons, therefore O(n^2), even if the check for shared elements takes constant time.

In sorting, the naive implementation is O(n^2) but you can take advantage of the transitive nature of ordered comparison (so, for example, you know nothing in the lower partition of quicksort needs to be compared to anything in the upper partition, as it's already been compared to the pivot). This is what result in sorting being O(n * log n).

This doesn't apply here. So unless there's something special about the sets that allows us to skip comparisons based on the results of previous comparisons, it's going to be O(n^2) in general.

Paul.