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I understand the difference between the Big-O and the little-o, however I wonder when/why one would choose the little-o over the big-O for a particular situation (and the opposite).

Kevin Van Ryckegem
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    Choose? There is nothing about choice there... – Idos Jan 24 '16 at 15:17
  • Possible duplicate of [Difference between Big-O and Little-O Notation](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1364444/difference-between-big-o-and-little-o-notation) – Idos Jan 24 '16 at 15:18

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You can chose to describe an algorithm or requirement using little-o notation when you want to emphasize the difference from big O, or if you want to ensure "something is better than..."

A naive example - if you need a 3rd party to create some library for you, and you want to ensure the query time is sublinear, the mathematical notation for sublinear will be o(n), where o(.) is the little o notation.

amit
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