Question

What is the time complexity for decreasing priority of key in a minimum ternary heap of n elements?

(a) O (log n/ log 3)

(b) O (n!)

(c) O (n)

(d) O (1)

Enquiry is from Ternary heap topic in section Heap of Data Structures & Algorithms I

I have been asked this question during an online interview.

Answer 1

The correct option is (a) O (log n/ log 3)

Explanation: In order to decrease the priority of an item in a ternary heap data structure having n elements, the heap has great efficiency for decreasing them. So the time complexity for worst case is found to be O (log n/ log 3). This is due to the upwards swapping process.