What is the time complexity of inserting an element at a specific position in a linked list?

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What is the time complexity of inserting an element at a specific position in a linked list?

The time complexity of inserting an element at a specific position in a linked list depends on the position at which the element is being inserted.

If the element is being inserted at the beginning of the linked list (position 0), the time complexity is O(1) or constant time. This is because we only need to update the pointers of the new element to point to the current head of the linked list, and update the head pointer to point to the new element.

If the element is being inserted at the end of the linked list (position n), where n is the number of elements in the linked list, the time complexity is O(n) or linear time. This is because we need to traverse the entire linked list to reach the last element, and then update the pointers of the last element to point to the new element.

If the element is being inserted at any other position in the linked list (position k, where 0 < k < n), the time complexity is also O(n) or linear time. This is because we need to traverse the linked list from the beginning until we reach the position before the desired position, and then update the pointers of the previous element to point to the new element, and the new element to point to the next element.

In summary, the time complexity of inserting an element at a specific position in a linked list is O(1) for insertion at the beginning, O(n) for insertion at the end, and O(n) for insertion at any other position.