I struggle to define the running time for the following algorithm in O notation. My first guess was O(n), but the gap between the iterations and the number I apply isn't steady. How have I incorrectly defined this?
public int function (int n )
{
if ( n == 0) {
return 0;
}
int i = 1;
int j = n ;
while ( i < j )
{
i = i + 1;
j = j - 1;
}
return function ( i - 1) + 1;
}
The while
is executed in about n/2
time.
The recursion is executed passing as n
a value that is about half of the original n
, so:
n/2 (first iteration)
n/4 (second iteration, equal to (n/2)/2)
n/8
n/16
n/32
...
This is similar to a geometric serie.
Infact it can be represented as
n * (1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + ...)
So it converges to n * 1 = n
So the O notation is O(n)