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Worst-case efficient external-memory priority queues

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Algorithm Theory — SWAT'98 (SWAT 1998)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1432))

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Abstract

A priority queue Q is a data structure that maintains a collection of elements, each element having an associated priority drawn from a totally ordered universe, under the operations Insert, which inserts an element into Q, and DeleteMin, which deletes an element with the minimum priority from Q. In this paper a priority-queue implementation is given which is efficient with respect to the number of block transfers or I/Os performed between the internal and external memories of a computer. Let B and M denote the respective capacity of a block and the internal memory measured in elements. The developed data structure handles any intermixed sequence of Insert and DeleteMin operations such that in every disjoint interval of B consecutive priorityqueue operations at most clogM/B N/M I/Os are performed, for some positive constant c. These I/Os are divided evenly among the operations: if B ≥ clogM/B N/M, one I/O is necessary for every B/(clogM/B N/M)th operation and if B < clogM/B N/M, c/B log M/B N/M I/Os are performed per every operation. Moreover, every operation requires O(log2 N) comparisons in the worst case. The best earlier solutions can only handle a sequence of S operations with O(σ Si=1 1/B log M/B Ni/M) I/Os, where N i denotes the number of elements stored in the data structure prior to the ith operation, without giving any guarantee for the performance of the individual operations.

The full version has appeared as Technical Report 97/25, Department of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, 1997.

Supported by the Carlsberg foundation under grant No. 96-0302/20. Partially supported by the ESPRIT Long Term Research Program of the EU under contract No. 20244 (project ALCOM-IT). Email: brodal@mpi-sb.mpg.de.

Supported partially by the Danish Natural Science Research Council under contract No. 9400952 (project Computational Algorithmics). Email: jyrki@diku.dk.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Im Stadtwald, Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik, D-66123, Saarbrücken, Germany

    Gerth Stølting Brodal

  2. Datalogisk Institut, Københavns Universitet, Universitetsparken 1, DK-2100, København ø, Denmark

    Jyrki Katajainen

Authors
  1. Gerth Stølting Brodal
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  2. Jyrki Katajainen
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Stefan Arnborg Lars Ivansson

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© 1998 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Brodal, G.S., Katajainen, J. (1998). Worst-case efficient external-memory priority queues. In: Arnborg, S., Ivansson, L. (eds) Algorithm Theory — SWAT'98. SWAT 1998. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1432. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0054359

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0054359

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