I calculate my runtime complexity to be 4, what is the Big O notation of this?
For example if my runtime complexity is 4 + n then its
Let's look loosely at the definition of what we mean by f(n) is in O(g(n))
:
f(n)
is inO(g(n))
means thatc · g(n)
is an upper bound onf(n)
. Thus there exists some constantc
such thatf(n) ≤ c · g(n)
holds for sufficiently largen
(i.e. ,n ≥ n0
for some constantn0
).
You can treat a constant function just as any other function, w.r.t. analysing its asymptotic behaviour using e.g. big-O notation.
f(n) = 4
g(n) = 1
f(n) ≤ c · g(n) = c · 1, for c ≥ 4 and for all n (*)
(*) with e.g. n0=0 and c=4 => f(n) is in O(1)
Note: as Ctx notes in the comments below, O(1)
(or e.g. O(n)
) describes a set of functions, so to be fully correct, f
should be described to be in O(1)
(f ∈ O(n)
, f
:s set membership in O(1)
), rather than "f(n)
being in O(1)
". You can, however, probably expect to see the less rigorous version "f(n)
is in O(1)
" (or some O(g(n))
) just as frequently at the web, at least outside of the scope of scientific articles.