[java] Big-O summary for Java Collections Framework implementations?

I may be teaching a "Java crash-course" soon. While it is probably safe to assume that the audience members will know Big-O notation, it is probably not safe to assume that they will know what the order of the various operations on various collection implementations is.

I could take time to generate a summary matrix myself, but if it's already out there in the public domain somewhere, I'd sure like to reuse it (with proper credit, of course.)

Anyone have any pointers?

This question is related to java collections big-o

The answer is


This website is pretty good but not specific to Java: http://bigocheatsheet.com/ Here is an image in case this link won't work


The Javadocs from Sun for each collection class will generally tell you exactly what you want. HashMap, for example:

This implementation provides constant-time performance for the basic operations (get and put), assuming the hash function disperses the elements properly among the buckets. Iteration over collection views requires time proportional to the "capacity" of the HashMap instance (the number of buckets) plus its size (the number of key-value mappings).

TreeMap:

This implementation provides guaranteed log(n) time cost for the containsKey, get, put and remove operations.

TreeSet:

This implementation provides guaranteed log(n) time cost for the basic operations (add, remove and contains).

(emphasis mine)


The book Java Generics and Collections has this information (pages: 188, 211, 222, 240).

List implementations:

                      get  add  contains next remove(0) iterator.remove
ArrayList             O(1) O(1) O(n)     O(1) O(n)      O(n)
LinkedList            O(n) O(1) O(n)     O(1) O(1)      O(1)
CopyOnWrite-ArrayList O(1) O(n) O(n)     O(1) O(n)      O(n)

Set implementations:

                      add      contains next     notes
HashSet               O(1)     O(1)     O(h/n)   h is the table capacity
LinkedHashSet         O(1)     O(1)     O(1) 
CopyOnWriteArraySet   O(n)     O(n)     O(1) 
EnumSet               O(1)     O(1)     O(1) 
TreeSet               O(log n) O(log n) O(log n)
ConcurrentSkipListSet O(log n) O(log n) O(1)

Map implementations:

                      get      containsKey next     Notes
HashMap               O(1)     O(1)        O(h/n)   h is the table capacity
LinkedHashMap         O(1)     O(1)        O(1) 
IdentityHashMap       O(1)     O(1)        O(h/n)   h is the table capacity 
EnumMap               O(1)     O(1)        O(1) 
TreeMap               O(log n) O(log n)    O(log n) 
ConcurrentHashMap     O(1)     O(1)        O(h/n)   h is the table capacity 
ConcurrentSkipListMap O(log n) O(log n)    O(1)

Queue implementations:

                      offer    peek poll     size
PriorityQueue         O(log n) O(1) O(log n) O(1)
ConcurrentLinkedQueue O(1)     O(1) O(1)     O(n)
ArrayBlockingQueue    O(1)     O(1) O(1)     O(1)
LinkedBlockingQueue   O(1)     O(1) O(1)     O(1)
PriorityBlockingQueue O(log n) O(1) O(log n) O(1)
DelayQueue            O(log n) O(1) O(log n) O(1)
LinkedList            O(1)     O(1) O(1)     O(1)
ArrayDeque            O(1)     O(1) O(1)     O(1)
LinkedBlockingDeque   O(1)     O(1) O(1)     O(1)

The bottom of the javadoc for the java.util package contains some good links:


The guy above gave comparison for HashMap / HashSet vs. TreeMap / TreeSet.

I will talk about ArrayList vs. LinkedList:

ArrayList:

  • O(1) get()
  • amortized O(1) add()
  • if you insert or delete an element in the middle using ListIterator.add() or Iterator.remove(), it will be O(n) to shift all the following elements

LinkedList:

  • O(n) get()
  • O(1) add()
  • if you insert or delete an element in the middle using ListIterator.add() or Iterator.remove(), it will be O(1)

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