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Big-O summary for Java Collections Framework implementations? [closed]

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What is time complexity of collections in Java?

It iterates through the internal array and checks each element one by one, so the time complexity for this operation always requires O(n) time.

What is complexity Big O notation of ArrayList contains () method?

As it can be seen from the code, in order to find an index of a given element, one, in the worst case, must iterate through the whole array. As a size of the array grows and so does the search time by an element. Hence, the time complexity of contains method is O(n) , where n is the number of elements in the list.

What is the big O time complexity of the common operations in an ArrayList?

When we search any value in ArrayList or LinkedList, we have to iterate through all elements. This operation has O(N) time complexity.


The book Java Generics and Collections has this information (pages: 188, 211, 222, 240).

List implementations:

                      get  add  contains next remove(0) iterator.remove
ArrayList             O(1) O(1) O(n)     O(1) O(n)      O(n)
LinkedList            O(n) O(1) O(n)     O(1) O(1)      O(1)
CopyOnWrite-ArrayList O(1) O(n) O(n)     O(1) O(n)      O(n)

Set implementations:

                      add      contains next     notes
HashSet               O(1)     O(1)     O(h/n)   h is the table capacity
LinkedHashSet         O(1)     O(1)     O(1) 
CopyOnWriteArraySet   O(n)     O(n)     O(1) 
EnumSet               O(1)     O(1)     O(1) 
TreeSet               O(log n) O(log n) O(log n)
ConcurrentSkipListSet O(log n) O(log n) O(1)

Map implementations:

                      get      containsKey next     Notes
HashMap               O(1)     O(1)        O(h/n)   h is the table capacity
LinkedHashMap         O(1)     O(1)        O(1) 
IdentityHashMap       O(1)     O(1)        O(h/n)   h is the table capacity 
EnumMap               O(1)     O(1)        O(1) 
TreeMap               O(log n) O(log n)    O(log n) 
ConcurrentHashMap     O(1)     O(1)        O(h/n)   h is the table capacity 
ConcurrentSkipListMap O(log n) O(log n)    O(1)

Queue implementations:

                      offer    peek poll     size
PriorityQueue         O(log n) O(1) O(log n) O(1)
ConcurrentLinkedQueue O(1)     O(1) O(1)     O(n)
ArrayBlockingQueue    O(1)     O(1) O(1)     O(1)
LinkedBlockingQueue   O(1)     O(1) O(1)     O(1)
PriorityBlockingQueue O(log n) O(1) O(log n) O(1)
DelayQueue            O(log n) O(1) O(log n) O(1)
LinkedList            O(1)     O(1) O(1)     O(1)
ArrayDeque            O(1)     O(1) O(1)     O(1)
LinkedBlockingDeque   O(1)     O(1) O(1)     O(1)

The bottom of the javadoc for the java.util package contains some good links:

  • Collections Overview has a nice summary table.
  • Annotated Outline lists all of the implementations on one page.

This website is pretty good but not specific to Java: http://bigocheatsheet.com/ Here is an image in case this link won't work


The Javadocs from Sun for each collection class will generally tell you exactly what you want. HashMap, for example:

This implementation provides constant-time performance for the basic operations (get and put), assuming the hash function disperses the elements properly among the buckets. Iteration over collection views requires time proportional to the "capacity" of the HashMap instance (the number of buckets) plus its size (the number of key-value mappings).

TreeMap:

This implementation provides guaranteed log(n) time cost for the containsKey, get, put and remove operations.

TreeSet:

This implementation provides guaranteed log(n) time cost for the basic operations (add, remove and contains).

(emphasis mine)


The guy above gave comparison for HashMap / HashSet vs. TreeMap / TreeSet.

I will talk about ArrayList vs. LinkedList:

ArrayList:

  • O(1) get()
  • amortized O(1) add()
  • if you insert or delete an element in the middle using ListIterator.add() or Iterator.remove(), it will be O(n) to shift all the following elements

LinkedList:

  • O(n) get()
  • O(1) add()
  • if you insert or delete an element in the middle using ListIterator.add() or Iterator.remove(), it will be O(1)