The time complexity to go over each adjacent edge of a vertex is, say, O(N)
, where N
is number of adjacent edges. So, for V
numbers of vertices the time complexity becomes O(V*N)
= O(E)
, where E
is the total number of edges in the graph. Since removing and adding a vertex from/to a queue is O(1)
, why is it added to the overall time complexity of BFS as O(V+E)
?
I hope this is helpful to anybody having trouble understanding computational time complexity for Breadth First Search a.k.a BFS.
Queue graphTraversal.add(firstVertex);
// This while loop will run V times, where V is total number of vertices in graph.
while(graphTraversal.isEmpty == false)
currentVertex = graphTraversal.getVertex();
// This while loop will run Eaj times, where Eaj is number of adjacent edges to current vertex.
while(currentVertex.hasAdjacentVertices)
graphTraversal.add(adjacentVertex);
graphTraversal.remove(currentVertex);
Time complexity is as follows:
V * (O(1) + O(Eaj) + O(1))
V + V * Eaj + V
2V + E(total number of edges in graph)
V + E
I have tried to simplify the code and complexity computation but still if you have any questions let me know.