Question

Imagine that you are designing an application where you need to perform the operations Insert, DeleteMaximum, and Delete Minimum. For this application, the cost of inserting is not important, because itcan be done off-line prior to startup of the time-critical section, but the performance of the two deletionoperations are critical. Repeated deletions of either kind must work as fast as possible. Suggest a datastructure that can support this application, and justify your suggestion. What is the time complexity foreach of the three key operation

Answer 1

A stack data structure should be used. The time complexity of the insert, delete minimum and maximum operation is O(1).

Step-by-step explanation:

The stack data structure is an indexed structure that holds data in an easily retrievable way. Data is held in a first-in last-out method as elements in the structure are popped out from the end of the stack when retrieved sequentially.

The worst-case time complexity of getting the minimum and maximum elements in a stack and deleting it is O(1), this is also true for inserting elements in the stack data structure.