Lineaarotsing

Lineaarotsing, also known as sequential search, is a fundamental algorithm used to find a specific target value within a list or array. It works by iterating through each element of the data structure one by one, comparing it with the target value. If a match is found, the algorithm terminates and returns the position or index of the element. If the entire list is traversed without finding the target value, the algorithm indicates that the element is not present.

The simplicity of lineaarotsing makes it easy to understand and implement. Its primary advantage is its applicability to unsorted data. Regardless of the order of elements, lineaarotsing will always find the target if it exists. However, this simplicity comes at the cost of efficiency. In the worst-case scenario, where the target element is the last element or not present at all, lineaarotsing must examine every single element in the list. This results in a time complexity of O(n), where n is the number of elements in the list.

For larger datasets, the performance of lineaarotsing can become a bottleneck. In such cases, algorithms like binary search, which require the data to be sorted, offer significantly better performance with a time complexity of O(log n). Despite its limitations, lineaarotsing remains a valuable tool for smaller lists or when the data is not sorted and sorting it would be computationally more expensive than performing a linear search.