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lets say a data structure has operations called insert and delete both of which take O(log(n)) worst case. Suppose the amortized cost of insert is O(log(n)) and the amortized cost of delete is O(1).

Now if a sequence that has n delete operations performed on this data structure that has n elements currently, then what is the worst case? If delete takes O(1) amortized cost does this mean the worst case (not amortized) is O(n) for n delete's ?

I think no because it doesn't seem right but I'm not sure how to explain it

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  • $\begingroup$ Amortization usually refers to the entire sequence of operations on a data structure, not just some of them. $\endgroup$
    – Yuval Filmus
    Mar 23, 2019 at 8:12
  • $\begingroup$ I think you are right. Amortized cost is measured over unspecified-long sequence of operations, but since you can't delete more than N elements from this sequence, average cost of each operation in this procedure should be O(1) and therefore entire procedure is O(N). In other words, if this procedure require more than O(N) time, how one can say that amortized deletion operation cost is O(1)? $\endgroup$
    – Bulat
    Mar 23, 2019 at 8:53
  • $\begingroup$ sorry, I mean that answer to the question is yes, and therefore you are wrong $\endgroup$
    – Bulat
    Mar 23, 2019 at 9:05

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The answer hinges on the definition of amortized cost. Since you haven't given such a definition, let me assume that you are using the common definition.

Consider a data structure supporting operations $O_1,\ldots,O_m$. These operations have amortized cost $T_i$ (where $T_i$ could depend on parameters) if the total cost of a sequence of operations run immediately after initializing the data structure consisting of $c_i$ many operations of type $O_i$ is at most $$ c_1 O_1 + \cdots + c_m O_m. $$ This bound only works if we consider all operations done on the data structure since initialization.

In your case, you are only considering one part of the operations performed on the data structure, and so amortized cost doesn't apply.

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  • $\begingroup$ Yeah that would be the definition. So this wont be O(n) times for n delete operations because of the initialization cost ? Like my assumption of it being wrong was correct? $\endgroup$
    – Tinler
    Mar 23, 2019 at 18:48
  • $\begingroup$ The answer is, we don’t know either way from the given data. $\endgroup$
    – Yuval Filmus
    Mar 23, 2019 at 19:24
  • $\begingroup$ From cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs3110/2013sp/lectures/lec21-amortized/… I see that amortized cost is measured over n operations starting from arbitrary initial state $\endgroup$
    – Bulat
    Mar 24, 2019 at 6:08
  • $\begingroup$ @Bulat This is meaningless. Taking $n=1$, we recover worst case complexity. $\endgroup$
    – Yuval Filmus
    Mar 24, 2019 at 6:10
  • $\begingroup$ When n=1, any time is O(1). We can talk about some O(f(n)) only when we have some constraints for arbitrary n. Moreover, if we always start from empty structure, we can't say about amortized time of deletion per se. But googling for "amortized deletion time" brings a lot of results, including f.e cs.tau.ac.il/~orzamir/pub/FindMin_OrZamir.pdf $\endgroup$
    – Bulat
    Mar 24, 2019 at 6:17

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