Analysis of algorithms

In computer science, the analysis of algorithms is the process of finding the computational complexity of algorithms—the amount of time, storage, or other resources needed to execute them. Usually, this involves determining a function that relates the size of an algorithm's input to the number of steps it takes or the number of storage locations it uses. An algorithm is said to be efficient when this function's values are small, or grow slowly compared to a growth in the size of the input.

Different inputs of the same size may cause the algorithm to have different behavior, so best, worst and average case descriptions might all be of practical interest.
When not otherwise specified, the function describing the performance of an algorithm is usually an upper bound, determined from the worst case inputs to the algorithm.

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