Question

Given a singly linked list implementation of a list, what is the worst-case time complexity for the following operations (assume that the implementation only maintains a reference to the head of the linked list):

Retrieving the first item in the list.

Answer 1

The worst-case time complexity for retrieving the first item in a singly linked list is O(1), which means it is a constant time operation regardless of the size of the list.

Step-by-step explanation:

The worst-case time complexity for retrieving the first item in a singly linked list is O(1), which means it is a constant time operation regardless of the size of the list.

This is because a singly linked list maintains a reference to the head of the list, so retrieving the first item simply involves accessing that reference, which can be done in a constant amount of time.

For example, if you have a linked list with 1000 elements, retrieving the first item will take the same amount of time as retrieving the first item from a linked list with 10 elements.