Python Big O: the time complexities of different data structures in Python (www.pythonmorsels.com)

submitted 5 months ago by ericjmorey@programming.dev to c/python@programming.dev

9 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Trey Hunner writes:

This article is primarily meant to act as a Python time complexity cheat sheet for those who already understand what time complexity is and how the time complexity of an operation might affect your code. For a more thorough explanation of time complexity see Ned Batchelder's article/talk on this subject.

Read Python Big O: the time complexities of different data structures in Python

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

sorted_sequence.index(item)

Shouldn't this be O(n log n)? I guess Python doesn't have a list that stays sorted.

As a workaround, just use dict keys with no values instead.

[-] Nomecks@lemmy.ca 1 points 5 months ago

Sets stay sorted, no?

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Nope, sets are unordered.

[-] Nomecks@lemmy.ca 1 points 5 months ago

Ah, sorry. Sets are unique, not ordered. Thanks!

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 months ago

Yeah, I just think it's kind of odd though. If a language only has lists and hash maps, my go-to is to use a hash map for uniqueness, and sort the list for ordered lists.

But in Python, it's backwards where I use the hash map (dict) for ordered data and the set for uniqueness, because hash maps are unordered in most languages I've used.