News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Writing a Faster Sorting Algorithm. Parent comment

Re:Writing a Faster Sorting Algorithm by sqeaky on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @12:22PM (#13310813)
So providing a faster sort would be a violation?

The standard doesn't seem to say "or better" here, but I know that in other places it does (or least used to say something similar).

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Writing a Faster Sorting Algorithm by wnesensohn on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @12:36PM (#13310949)
No, f = O(n log n) means that f doesn't grow significantly faster than n log n. That is true for f = n log n, but it's also true for f = n. The "or better" is implicit by using big-O.

Note that this wouldn't be true if the standard said that it has to be Θ(n log n).

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Writing a Faster Sorting Algorithm by dietbacon on Tuesday January 03, 2017 @03:21PM (#13312681)
Big O complexity is an upper bound.

If something is O(1) it's also O(n) and O(n!), since it's an upper bound.

[ Parent | on HN ]