[texhax] "big O" and "little O" notation in amsmath

Ross Moore ross at ics.mq.edu.au
Sat Jan 10 00:39:37 CET 2004



On Fri, 9 Jan 2004, Joe Corneli wrote:

> Isn't $\mathrm{O}(f(n))$ sufficient for the OP?  I don't think the
> symbols are special.

Nothing special about the symbols, but I prefer:

\providecommand{\OO}[1]{\mathop{\mathrm{O}}\bigl(#1\bigr)}

or (with AMSmath)
\providecommand{\OO}[1]{\operatorname{O}\bigl(#1\bigr)}


and use:
   $\OO{f(n)}$

and similarly for  \oo{f(n)} .


Note the
  i.  slightly larger outer parentheses
  ii. operator spacing
 iii. easier to read in the body of the manuscript
  iv. easier to override (by redefining or pre-defining \OO )
       in the documentclass or other packages
      (especially valuable for editing journals/proceedings)


(for Barbara)
This big-O and little-o notation is sufficiently common in Applied Maths
fields that it deserves special support within AMS-packages, at least
to try to establish some uniformity of implementation.
Yes, it should be considered for STIX, IMHO.


Cheers

	Ross


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