Time complexity of recursive fibonacci algorithm

One thing you need to keep in mind about finding the time complexity of a recursive function is recurrence relation.

Below is a C function for finding the fibonacci sequence (same as yours):

 int fib(int n)
 {
   if((n==1) ||(n==2))return 1;
   return (fib(n-1)+fib(n-2));
 }

Converting the above code into a Recurrence Relation:

 T(0) = 0 ......base case
 T(n) = 2T(n-1) + 1

Sol'n

 T(n) = 2T(n-1) + 1
      = 2(2T(n-2) + 1) + 1
      = 4(2T(n-3) + 1) + 1 + 2
      :
      :
      = 2^k T(n-k) + ∑ 2^i
      = 2^k T(n-k) + 2^(k-1)
      = 2^k T(n-k) + (2^k) - 1           using 1-r^n / 1-r

Now,

 n-k = 0
 n=k

Finally,

 T(n) = 2^n T(n-n) + 2^n - 1
      = 2^n T(0) + 2^n - 1
      = 0 + 2^n - 1
      = 2^n - 1

Order:

 O(2^n)  .....Time Complexity

time complexity --- O(2^n)
space complexity-----O(n)
draw recursive tree and calculate its height or depth that will be space complexity

 

Reference:

http://cs.stackexchange.com/questions/14733/complexity-of-recursive-fibonacci-algorithm

http://cs.stackexchange.com/questions/13055/time-complexity-and-space-complexity-in-recursive-algorithm