How can building a heap be O n time complexity

Question

Can someone help explain how can building a heap be O n  complexity    Inserting an item into a heap is O log n   and the insert is repeated n 2 times  the remainder are leaves  and can t violate the heap property   So  this means the complexity should be O n log n   I would think   In other words  for each item we  heapify   it has the potential to have to filter down once for each level for the heap so far  which is log n levels    What am I missing

User · Answer

While building a heap  lets say you re taking a bottom up approach    You take each element and compare it with its children to check if the pair conforms to the heap rules  So  therefore  the leaves get included in the heap for free  That is because they have no children   Moving upwards  the worst case scenario for the node right above the leaves would be 1 comparison  At max they would be compared with just one generation of children  Moving further up  their immediate parents can at max be compared with two generations of children   Continuing in the same direction  you ll have log n  comparisons for the root in the worst case scenario  and log n -1 for its immediate children  log n -2 for their immediate children and so on  So summing it all up  you arrive on something like log n     log n -1  2    log n -2  4           1 2   logn -1  which is nothing but O n

User · Answer

We get the runtime for the heap build by figuring out the maximum move each node can take  So we need to know how many nodes are in each row and how far from their can each node go   Starting from the root node each next row has double the nodes than the previous row has  so by answering how often can we double the number of nodes until we don t have any nodes left we get the height of the tree  Or in mathematical terms the height of the tree is log2 n   n being the length of the array   To calculate the nodes in one row we start from the back  we know n 2 nodes are at the bottom  so by dividing by 2 we get the previous row and so on   Based on this we get this formula for the Siftdown approach   0   n 2     1   n 4     2   n 8           log2 n    1   The term in the last paranthesis is the height of the tree multiplied by the one node that is at the root  the term in the first paranthesis are all the nodes in the bottom row multiplied by the length they can travel 0  Same formula in smart      Bringing the n back in we have 2   n  2 can be discarded because its a constant and tada we have the worst case runtime of the Siftdown approach  n

User · Answer

think you re making a mistake  Take a look at this  http   golang org pkg container heap  Building a heap isn y O n   However  inserting is O lg n   I m assuming initialization is O n  if you set a heap size b c the heap needs to allocate space and set up the data structure  If you have n items to put into the heap then yes  each insert is lg n  and there are n items  so you get n lg n  as u stated

User · Answer

Lets suppose you have N elements in a heap   Then its height would be Log N   Now you want to insert another element  then the complexity would be   Log N   we have to compare all the way UP to the root   Now you are having N 1 elements  amp  height   Log N 1   Using induction technique it can be proved that the complexity of insertion would be  logi     Now using      log a   log b   log ab   This simplifies to    logi log n    which is actually O NlogN   But  we are doing something wrong here  as in all the case we do not reach at the top  Hence while executing most of the times we may find that  we are not going even half way up the tree  Whence  this bound can be optimized to have another tighter bound by using mathematics given in answers above   This realization came to me after a detail though  amp  experimentation on Heaps

User · Answer

In case of building the heap  we start from height      logn -1  where logn is the height of tree of n elements    For each element present at height  h   we go at max upto  logn -h  height down       So total number of traversal would be -     T n    sigma  2  logn-h   h  where h varies from 1 to logn     T n    n  1 2   2 4   3 8         logn  2 logn        T n    n  sigma x  2 x    where x varies from 1 to logn      and according to the  sources  1      function in the bracket approaches to 2 at infinity      Hence T n    O n

User · Answer

There are already some great answers but I would like to add a little visual explanation      Now  take a look at the image  there are n 2 1 green nodes with height 0  here 23 2   12  n 2 2 red nodes with height 1  here 23 4   6  n 2 3 blue node with height 2  here 23 8   3  n 2 4 purple nodes with height 3  here 23 16   2  so there are n 2  h 1  nodes for height h To find the time complexity lets count the amount of work done or max no of iterations performed by each node now it can be noticed that each node can perform atmost  iterations    height of the node    Green    n 2 1   0  no iterations since no children    red      n 2 2   1  heapify will perform atmost one swap for each red node    blue     n 2 3   2  heapify will perform atmost two swaps for each blue node    purple   n 2 4   3  heapify will perform atmost three swaps for each purple node       so for any nodes with height h maximum work done is n 2  h 1    h    Now total work done is    - gt  n 2 1   0     n 2 2   1    n 2 3   2     n 2 4   3         n 2  h 1    h    - gt  n     0   1 4   2 8   3 16       h 2  h 1       now for any value of h  the sequence    - gt    0   1 4   2 8   3 16       h 2  h 1       will never exceed 1 Thus the time complexity will never exceed O n  for building heap

User · Answer

Basically  work is done only on non-leaf nodes while building a heap   and the work done is the amount of swapping down to satisfy heap condition   in other words  in worst case  the amount is proportional to the height of the node   all in all the complexity of the problem is proportional to the sum of heights of all the non-leaf nodes  which is  2 h 1 - 1 -h-1 n-h-1  O n

User · Answer

As we know the height of a heap is log n   where n is the total number of elements Lets represent it as h  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp When we perform heapify operation  then the elements at last level h  won t move even a single step  nbsp  nbsp  The number of elements at second last level h-1  is 2h-1 and they can move at max 1 level during heapify    nbsp  nbsp  nbsp Similarly  for the ith  level we have 2i elements which can move h-i positions   Therefore total number of moves S  2h 0 2h-1 1 2h-2 2    20 h   nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp S 2h  1 2   2 22   3 23      h 2h                      -------------------------------------------------1 this is AGP series  to solve this divide both sides by 2  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp S 2 2h  1 22   2 23      h 2h 1                      -------------------------------------------------2 subtracting equation 2 from 1 gives  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp S 2 2h  1 2 1 22   1 23      1 2h  h 2h 1   nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp S 2h 1  1 2 1 22   1 23      1 2h  h 2h 1  now 1 2 1 22   1 23      1 2h is decreasing GP whose sum is less than 1  when h tends to infinity  the sum tends to 1   In further analysis  let s take an upper bound on the sum which is 1   This gives S 2h 1 1 h 2h 1  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  2h 1 h nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  2h has h log n   2h n Therefore S n log n  T C  O n

User · Answer

Intuitively       The complexity should be O nLog n     for each item we  heapify   it has the potential to have to filter down once for each level for the heap so far  which is log n levels      Not quite  Your logic does not produce a tight bound -- it over estimates the complexity of each heapify  If built from the bottom up  insertion  heapify  can be much less than O log n    The process is as follows     Step 1   The first n 2 elements go on the bottom row of the heap  h 0  so heapify is not needed     Step 2   The next n 22 elements go on the row 1 up from the bottom  h 1  heapify filters 1 level down     Step i    The next n 2i elements go in row i up from the bottom  h i  heapify filters i levels down     Step log n    The last n 2log2 n    1 element goes in row log n  up from the bottom  h log n   heapify filters log n  levels down   NOTICE  that after step one  1 2 of the elements  n 2  are already in the heap  and we didn t even need to call heapify once  Also  notice that only a single element  the root  actually incurs the full log n  complexity     Theoretically   The Total steps N to build a heap of size n  can be written out mathematically    At height i  we ve shown  above  that there will be n 2i 1 elements that need to call heapify  and we know heapify at height i is O i   This gives         The solution to the last summation can be found by taking the derivative of both sides of the well known geometric series equation         Finally  plugging in x   1 2 into the above equation yields 2  Plugging this into the first equation gives         Thus  the total number of steps is of size O n

User · Answer

Your analysis is correct  However  it is not tight    It is not really easy to explain why building a heap is a linear operation  you should better read it   A great analysis of the algorithm can be seen here     The main idea is that in the build heap algorithm the actual heapify cost is not O log n for all elements   When heapify is called  the running time depends on how far an element might move down in tree before the process terminates  In other words  it depends on the height of the element in the heap  In the worst case  the element might go down all the way to the leaf level    Let us count the work done level by level   At the bottommost level  there are 2  h nodes  but we do not call heapify on any of these  so the work is 0  At the next to level there are 2  h - 1  nodes  and each might move down by 1 level  At the 3rd level from the bottom  there are 2  h - 2  nodes  and each might move down by 2 levels   As you can see not all heapify operations are O log n   this is why you are getting O n

User · Answer

I think there are several questions buried in this topic   How do you implement buildHeap so it runs in O n  time  How do you show that buildHeap runs in O n  time when implemented correctly  Why doesn t that same logic work to make heap sort run in O n  time rather than O n log n    How do you implement buildHeap so it runs in O n  time  Often  answers to these questions focus on the difference between siftUp and siftDown  Making the correct choice between siftUp and siftDown is critical to get O n  performance for buildHeap  but does nothing to help one understand the difference between buildHeap and heapSort in general  Indeed  proper implementations of both buildHeap and heapSort will only use siftDown  The siftUp operation is only needed to perform inserts into an existing heap  so it would be used to implement a priority queue using a binary heap  for example  I ve written this to describe how a max heap works  This is the type of heap typically used for heap sort or for a priority queue where higher values indicate higher priority  A min heap is also useful  for example  when retrieving items with integer keys in ascending order or strings in alphabetical order  The principles are exactly the same  simply switch the sort order  The heap property specifies that each node in a binary heap must be at least as large as both of its children  In particular  this implies that the largest item in the heap is at the root  Sifting down and sifting up are essentially the same operation in opposite directions  move an offending node until it satisfies the heap property   siftDown swaps a node that is too small with its largest child  thereby moving it down  until it is at least as large as both nodes below it  siftUp swaps a node that is too large with its parent  thereby moving it up  until it is no larger than the node above it   The number of operations required for siftDown and siftUp is proportional to the distance the node may have to move  For siftDown  it is the distance to the bottom of the tree  so siftDown is expensive for nodes at the top of the tree  With siftUp  the work is proportional to the distance to the top of the tree  so siftUp is expensive for nodes at the bottom of the tree  Although both operations are O log n  in the worst case  in a heap  only one node is at the top whereas half the nodes lie in the bottom layer  So it shouldn t be too surprising that if we have to apply an operation to every node  we would prefer siftDown over siftUp  The buildHeap function takes an array of unsorted items and moves them until they all satisfy the heap property  thereby producing a valid heap  There are two approaches one might take for buildHeap using the siftUp and siftDown operations we ve described   Start at the top of the heap  the beginning of the array  and call siftUp on each item  At each step  the previously sifted items  the items before the current item in the array  form a valid heap  and sifting the next item up places it into a valid position in the heap  After sifting up each node  all items satisfy the heap property   Or  go in the opposite direction  start at the end of the array and move backwards towards the front  At each iteration  you sift an item down until it is in the correct location    Which implementation for buildHeap is more efficient  Both of these solutions will produce a valid heap  Unsurprisingly  the more efficient one is the second operation that uses siftDown  Let h   log n represent the height of the heap  The work required for the siftDown approach is given by the sum  0   n 2     1   n 4     2   n 8           h   1    Each term in the sum has the maximum distance a node at the given height will have to move  zero for the bottom layer  h for the root  multiplied by the number of nodes at that height  In contrast  the sum for calling siftUp on each node is  h   n 2      h-1    n 4      h-2  n 8           0   1    It should be clear that the second sum is larger  The first term alone is hn 2   1 2 n log n  so this approach has complexity at best O n log n   How do we prove the sum for the siftDown approach is indeed O n   One method  there are other analyses that also work  is to turn the finite sum into an infinite series and then use Taylor series  We may ignore the first term  which is zero   If you aren t sure why each of those steps works  here is a justification for the process in words   The terms are all positive  so the finite sum must be smaller than the infinite sum  The series is equal to a power series evaluated at x 1 2  That power series is equal to  a constant times  the derivative of the Taylor series for f x  1  1-x   x 1 2 is within the interval of convergence of that Taylor series  Therefore  we can replace the Taylor series with 1  1-x   differentiate  and evaluate to find the value of the infinite series   Since the infinite sum is exactly n  we conclude that the finite sum is no larger  and is therefore  O n   Why does heap sort require O n log n  time  If it is possible to run buildHeap in linear time  why does heap sort require O n log n  time  Well  heap sort consists of two stages  First  we call buildHeap on the array  which requires O n  time if implemented optimally  The next stage is to  repeatedly delete the largest item in the heap and put it at the end of the array  Because we delete an item from the heap  there is always an open spot just after the end of the heap where we can store the item  So heap sort achieves a sorted order by successively removing the next largest item and putting it into the array starting at the last position and moving towards the front  It is the complexity of this last part that dominates in heap sort  The loop looks likes this  for  i   n - 1  i  gt  0  i--        arr i    deleteMax       Clearly  the loop runs O n  times  n - 1 to be precise  the last item is already in place   The complexity of deleteMax for a heap is O log n   It is typically implemented by removing the root  the largest item left in the heap  and replacing it with the last item in the heap  which is a leaf  and therefore one of the smallest items  This new root will almost certainly violate the heap property  so you have to call siftDown until you move it back into an acceptable position  This also has the effect of moving the next largest item up to the root  Notice that  in contrast to buildHeap where for most of the nodes we are calling siftDown from the bottom of the tree  we are now calling siftDown from the top of the tree on each iteration  Although the tree is shrinking  it doesn t shrink fast enough  The height of the tree stays constant until you have removed the first half of the nodes  when you clear out the bottom layer completely   Then for the next quarter  the height is h - 1  So the total work for this second stage is h n 2    h-1  n 4         0   1   Notice the switch  now the zero work case corresponds to a single node and the h work case corresponds to half the nodes  This sum is O n log n  just like the inefficient version of buildHeap that is implemented using siftUp  But in this case  we have no choice since we are trying to sort and we require the next largest item be removed next  In summary  the work for heap sort is the sum of the two stages   O n  time for buildHeap and O n log n  to remove each node in order  so the complexity is O n log n   You can prove  using some ideas from information theory  that for a comparison-based sort  O n log n  is the best you could hope for anyway  so there s no reason to be disappointed by this or expect heap sort to achieve the O n  time bound that buildHeap does

User · Answer

I really like explanation by Jeremy west     another approach which is really easy for understanding is given here  http   courses washington edu css343 zander NotesProbs heapcomplexity   since  buildheap depends using depends on heapify and shiftdown approach is used which depends upon sum of the heights of all nodes  So  to find the sum of height of nodes which is given by           S   summation from i   0 to i   h of  2 i  h-i    where h   logn is height of the tree         solving s  we get s   2  h 1  - 1 -  h 1          since  n   2  h 1  - 1         s   n - h - 1   n- logn - 1         s   O n   and so complexity of buildheap is O n

User · Answer

Successive insertions can be described by    T   O log 1    log 2         log n     O log n      By starling approximation  n     O n  n   O 1     therefore T    O nlog n    Hope this helps  the optimal way O n  is using the build heap algorithm for a given set  ordering doesn t matter

User · Answer

It would be O n log n  if you built the heap by repeatedly inserting elements   However  you can create a new heap more efficiently by inserting the elements in arbitrary order and then applying an algorithm to  heapify  them into the proper order  depending on the type of heap of course    See http   en wikipedia org wiki Binary heap   Building a heap  for an example   In this case you essentially work up from the bottom level of the tree  swapping parent and child nodes until the heap conditions are satisfied

User · Answer

bcorso has already demonstrated the proof of the complexity analysis  But for the sake of those still learning complexity analysis  I have this to add   The basis of your original mistake is due to a misinterpretation of the meaning of the statement   insertion into a heap takes O log n  time   Insertion into a heap is indeed O log n   but you have to recognise that n is the size of the heap during the insertion   In the context of inserting n objects into a heap  the complexity of the ith insertion is O log n i  where n i is the size of the heap as at insertion i  Only the last insertion has a complexity of O  log n

User · Answer

The linear time bound of build Heap  can be shown by computing the sum of the heights of all the nodes in the heap  which is the maximum number of dashed lines  For the perfect binary tree of height h containing N   2  h 1      1 nodes  the sum of the heights of the nodes is N     H     1  Thus it is O N

User · Answer

Proof of O n   The proof isn t fancy  and quite straightforward  I only proved the case for a full binary tree  the result can be generalized for a complete binary tree

[algorithm] How can building a heap be O(n) time complexity?

Examples related to algorithm

Examples related to heap

Examples related to complexity-theory

Examples related to construction