listaddelement

Listaddelement is a generic term for the operation of adding an element to a list. It is not a standardized function name in major libraries; instead it describes the common capability of inserting a new item into a list or sequence, usually at the end, though some contexts allow insertion at a specified position.

In imperative programming, the operation typically takes a list and an element and mutates the list to include the new item. Some languages offer a functional variant that returns a new list with the element appended, leaving the original list unchanged. The exact signature and return value vary by language and library.

Complexity and behavior depend on the underlying data structure. For dynamic arrays, appending is typically amortized O(1), with occasional resizing. For linked lists, appending to the end can be O(1) if a tail reference exists; otherwise it is O(n) to locate the end. Inserting at an arbitrary index in either structure is usually O(n) in the worst case, since elements may need to be shifted or traversed.

Usage across languages often uses different names for the same idea. Examples include Python’s list.append, Java’s List.add, and JavaScript’s Array.push. Some functional languages emphasize front insertion using cons, which adds to the head of a list rather than the end, illustrating that the exact behavior depends on the data structure and conventions used.

Edge cases include handling capacity when using dynamic arrays, allowing or disallowing duplicate elements, and deciding whether the operation mutates the original list or returns a new one. See also: append, push, insert, extend, prepend.