Floyd's cycle-finding
Aka: floyd's tortoise and hare
A constant-space cycle finding algorithm that uses two pointers at different speeds to detect cycles.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Constant space | Faster algorithm available with Brent's (same big O though) |
LeetCode Problems
Linked List Cycle
iven head, the head of a linked list, determine if the linked list has a cycle in it.
There is a cycle in a linked list if there is some node in the list that can be reached again by continuously following the next pointer. Internally, pos is used to denote the index of the node that tail's next pointer is connected to. Note that pos is not passed as a parameter.
Return true if there is a cycle in the linked list. Otherwise, return false.
| Performance | |
|---|---|
| Worst-case | O(n) |
| Average | O(n) |
| Best-case | O(n) |
| Worst-case space | O(1) |