Question

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

(a) O (log n/ log 3)

(b) O (n!)

(c) O (n)

(d) O (1)

This key question is from Ternary heap topic in chapter Heap of Data Structures & Algorithms I

I got this question during an interview.

Answer 1

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

The explanation is: In order to increase the priority of an item in a ternary heap data structure having n elements, it performs upwards swapping. So the time complexity for worst case is found to be O (log n/ log 3).