40 Algorithms Every Programmer Should Know

The time complexity of lists

The time complexity of various functions of a list can be summarized as follows using the Big O notation:

Different methods	Time complexity
Insert an element	O(1)
Delete an element	O(n) (as in the worst case may have to iterate the whole list)
Slicing a list	O(n)
Element retrieval	O(n)
Copy	O(n)

Please note that the time taken to add an individual element is independent of the size of the list. Other operations mentioned in the table are dependent on the size of the list. As the size of the list gets bigger, the impact on performance becomes more pronounced.