Classes of Time Complexity

Definition

The running time (cf. definition :Running_Time ) or time complexity of an algorithm measures or estimates the maximum number of steps that an algorithm uses on any input of length $n$ and thus gives an estimation of its time taken to proceed.

As outlined in this lesson, we commonly consider the worst-case time complexity, which is given by the maximum number of steps and thus by the maximum amount of time taken on inputs of a particular size $n$. Obviously, the maximum time to execute an algorithm on a given input $n$ depends on its complexity and thus increases with $n$. The most common time complexity classes are figured in this table :Efficiency_of_Alg_table_1 with increasing order.