(definition)
Definition: The resources an algorithm used to find an answer. It is usually measured in terms of the theoretical computations, such as comparisons or data moves, the memory used, the number of messages passed, the number of disk accesses, etc.
See also big-O notation, best case, worst case, average case.
Author: PEB
If you have suggestions, corrections, or comments, please get in touch with Paul Black.
Entry modified 17 December 2004.
HTML page formatted Mon Feb 2 13:10:39 2015.
Cite this as:
Paul E. Black, "efficiency", in
Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures [online], Vreda Pieterse and Paul E. Black, eds. 17 December 2004. (accessed TODAY)
Available from: http://www.nist.gov/dads/HTML/efficiency.html