However, you can just run a straight line through your results and if all the points lie close to it and appear randomly on both sides, then it's a straight line. This will give you a simple measure of whether your results lie on a straight line or not. Reporting your results Having determined the form of your results, it was essential that you report your final conclusions in the O notation. This is the standard way of describing the performance of an algorithm. Having noted that, it's a simple matter to remove it and re-run your experiment.
Duplicates complicate the analysis and reduce the times.
In the second case, it's important to ensure a low probability that the randomly generated item will be found, ie the range of the random numbers must be much greater than the number of items. Unix files should have LFs only at the end of a line.