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):

Finding the index of the first item with a particular value in the list.

Answer 1

The worst-case time complexity for finding the index of the first item with a particular value in a singly linked list is O(n), where n is the number of elements in the list.

Step-by-step explanation:

The worst-case time complexity for finding the index of the first item with a particular value in a singly linked list is O(n), where n is the number of elements in the list. This is because in the worst case scenario, you would have to traverse the entire linked list to find the desired value. Starting from the head of the list, you would have to visit each node in a linear fashion until the desired value is found or until the end of the list is reached.

For example, if the linked list has n elements and the desired value is located at the last index, you would need to visit each of the n nodes, resulting in a time complexity of O(n).