Understanding Time complexity calculation for Dijkstra Algorithm

Question

As per my understanding, I have calculated time complexity of Dijkstra Algorithm as big-O notation using adjacency list given below. It didn't come out as it was supposed to and that led me to understand it step by step.

1. Each vertex can be connected to (V-1) vertices, hence the number of adjacent edges to each vertex is V - 1. Let us say E represents V-1 edges connected to each vertex.
2. Finding & Updating each adjacent vertex's weight in min heap is O(log(V)) + O(1) or O(log(V)).
3. Hence from step1 and step2 above, the time complexity for updating all adjacent vertices of a vertex is E*(logV). or E*logV.
4. Hence time complexity for all V vertices is V * (E*logV) i.e O(VElogV).

But the time complexity for Dijkstra Algorithm is O(ElogV). Why?

Answer 1

Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm is O(ElogV) where:

• V is the number of vertices
• E is the total number of edges

Your analysis is correct, but your symbols have different meanings! You say the algorithm is O(VElogV) where:

• V is the number of vertices
• E is the maximum number of edges attached to a single node.

Let's rename your E to N. So one analysis says O(ElogV) and another says O(VNlogV). Both are correct and in fact E = O(VN). The difference is that ElogV is a tighter estimation.

Answer 2

Adding a more detailed explanation as I understood it just in case:

• O(for each vertex using min heap: for each edge linearly: push vertices to min heap that edge points to)
• V = number of vertices
• O(V * (pop vertex from min heap + find unvisited vertices in edges * push them to min heap))
• E = number of edges on each vertex
• O(V * (pop vertex from min heap + E * push unvisited vertices to min heap)). Note, that we can push the same node multiple times here before we get to "visit" it.
• O(V * (log(heap size) + E * log(heap size)))
• O(V * ((E + 1) * log(heap size)))
• O(V * (E * log(heap size)))
• E = V because each vertex can reference all other vertices
• O(V * (V * log(heap size)))
• O(V^2 * log(heap size))
• heap size is V^2 because we push to it every time we want to update a distance and can have up to V comparisons for each vertex. E.g. for the last vertex, 1st vertex has distance 10, 2nd has 9, 3rd has 8, etc, so, we push each time to update
• O(V^2 * log(V^2))
• O(V^2 * 2 * log(V))
• O(V^2 * log(V))
• V^2 is also a total number of edges, so if we let E = V^2 (as in the official naming), we will get the O(E * log(V))