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Is there a way to estimate the amount of time it will take to use a map, given the number of elements it contains and the operation being done to the map (e.g. addition, subtraction, division, etc.)? If I am running an application at a high frequency, is it a good idea to use maps?
(That's big-oh, not big zero)
This gives you the relative time that an operation takes, depending on the number of elements. That is - if you double the number of elements, does the time operation change at all? Does it double? Does it quadruple?
You still have to test the program to see how long the operations will take. Then Big-O will help you estimate the time with larger data sets.
[EDIT]:
Here's a link with some info about Big-O and the STL. I didn't thoroughly read it... but it shows what the Big-O numbers mean:
Quote:
1) Constant
2) Logarithmic
3) Linear
4) Amortized