NIST

hash heap

(data structure)

Definition: An efficient implementation of a priority queue. The linear hash function monotonically maps keys to buckets, and each bucket is a heap.

See also bucket sort.

Note: This is a bucket sort where the buckets are organized as heaps. The linear hash function maps increasing keys into nondecreasing values, that is, key1 > key2 implies h(key1) is greater than or equal to h(key2). It is not clear what happens if a bucket gets full.

Let R be the ratio between the key range and the range of the hash function. If R is so large there is only one bucket, we have a regular heap. If R is one, it is a direct mapped array. This data structure was proposed by Chris L. Kuszmaul <fyodor@nas.nasa.gov> in the news group comp.theory 13 January 1999.

Author: PEB


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Entry modified 17 December 2004.
HTML page formatted Wed Mar 13 12:42:46 2019.

Cite this as:
Paul E. Black, "hash heap", in Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures [online], Paul E. Black, ed. 17 December 2004. (accessed TODAY) Available from: https://www.nist.gov/dads/HTML/hashheap.html