Estimating the performance

The performance of a typical algorithm will depend on the type of the data given to it as an input. For example, if the data is already sorted according to the context of the problem we are trying to solve, the algorithm may perform blazingly fast. If the sorted input is used to benchmark this particular algorithm, then it will give an unrealistically good performance number, which will not be a true reflection of its real performance in most scenarios. To handle this dependency of algorithms on the input data, we have different types of cases to consider when conducting a performance analysis.