Arrays Linked Lists Questions Long
The time complexity of deleting an element from a specific position in a linked list using shifting is O(n), where n is the number of elements in the linked list.
In a linked list, each element is connected to the next element through a pointer. To delete an element from a specific position, we need to traverse the linked list until we reach the desired position. This traversal takes O(n) time complexity in the worst case scenario, as we may need to iterate through all the elements in the linked list.
Once we reach the desired position, we need to update the pointers to remove the element from the linked list. This involves shifting the pointers of the previous element to point to the next element, effectively bypassing the element to be deleted. Shifting the pointers takes constant time, as it only involves updating a few pointers.
However, after deleting the element, we may need to shift the remaining elements to fill the gap created by the deletion. This shifting operation requires updating the pointers of the subsequent elements to point to their new positions. In the worst case scenario, where we delete an element from the beginning or middle of the linked list, we may need to shift all the remaining elements. This shifting operation takes O(n) time complexity, as we need to update the pointers of each remaining element.
Therefore, the overall time complexity of deleting an element from a specific position in a linked list using shifting is O(n), as we need to traverse the linked list and potentially shift all the remaining elements.