What is the Big-O Notation?

Last updated Mar 28, 2023 - Edit Source

• Data engineering

Big-O Notation is an analysis of the algorithm using  Big – O asymptotic notation.  Mostly related to computing rather than storage, but having in mind that doing things not exponentially, such as copying the same data many times, will save lots of performance and money.

We can express algorithmic complexity using the big-O notation. For a problem of size N:

• A constant-time function/method is “order 1” : O(1)
• A linear-time function/method is “order N” : O(N)
• A quadratic-time function/method is “order N squared” : O(N^2)

Check out more on Analysis of Algorithms | Big-O analysis.