2.1. Simple Priority Queues
Lazy and eager priority queues.
A priority queue (PQ) is a data structure that supports the following two operations:
add(): adds a comparable key to the PQ.
remove(): removes the key with the highest (or lowest) priority in the PQ.
A PQ that removes the key with the highest priority is called a maximum PQ (max-PQ), and with the lowest priority is called a minimum PQ (min-PQ).
Does a priority queue need to be sorted at all time to support those two operations?
What are the use cases of priority queues?
Abstract Priority Queue
Let us define that is an abstract class to be inherited by all priority queues:
L1: declares the type T that is the type of input keys to be stored in this PQ.
T must be by its priority.
What are comparable data types in Java? Can you define your own comparator?
Let us define three abstract methods, add(), remove(), and size() in AbstractPriorityQueue:
Given the abstract methods, we can define the regular method isEmpty():
Lazy Priority Queue
Let us define whose core methods satisfy the following conditions:
add(): takesto add a key to the PQ.
remove(): takes to remove the key with the highest/lowest priority from the PQ.
In other words, all the hard work is done at the last minute when it needs to remove the key.
L1: declares T and passes it to its super class, AbstractPriorityQueue.
L2: defines a list to store input keys.
Can you add keys to the member field keys when it is declared as final (a constant)?
Why does all constructors in LazyPriorityQueue need to call the super constructor?
We then override the core methods, add() and remove():
L6-8: appends a key to the list in .
L15-20: removes a key to the list in .
Is ArrayList the best implementation of List for LazyPriorityQueue?
Why does remove() in L18 cost ?
Eager Priority Queues
Let us define whose core methods satisfy the following conditions:
add(): takesto add a key to the PQ.
remove(): takes to remove the key with the highest/lowest priority from the PQ.
In other words, all the hard work is done as soon as a key is added.
What are the situations that LazyPQ is preferred over EagerPQ and vice versa?
The implementations of the two constructors and the size() method are identical to the ones in LazyPriorityQueue.
Should we create an abstract class that implements the above code and make it as a super class of LazyPQ and EagerPQ? What level of abstraction is appropriate in object-oriented programming?
We then override the core methods, add() and remove():
L6-12: inserts a key to the list in .
L8: finds the index of the key to be inserted in the list using binary search in .
What are the worst-case complexities of add() and remove() in LazyPQ and EagerPQ in terms of assignments and comparison?