Suppose that a dynamic set $S$ is represented by a direct-address table $T$ of length $m$. Describe a procedure that finds the maximum element of $S$. What is the worst-case performance of your procedure?

FIND-MAXIMUM(S)

1 max = NIL

2 for i = 0 to m-1:

3     val=DIRECT-ADDRESS-SEARCH(T, i)

4     if val > max:

5         max = val

6 return max

We must examine $m$ distinct values because any key of $T$ may contain the maximum. Therefore this procedure runs in $O(m)$ time in the worst case.