Stable priority queue

"Aaron W. LaFramboise" <aa********@cox-internet.com> wrote in message

I understand that an easy way to make the standard std::priority_queue
stable is by including an integer stamp with each node that is
incremented each time a new node is pushed into the queue. However, no
matter what reasonably-sized type I use for the stamp, eventually the
stamp will 'wrap around' and possibly cause incorrect ordering of
elements. For my application, which queues elements very quickly and
runs for an indefinite amount of time, this scenario is a real concern,
and will eventually cause incorrect results.

Is there any easy and painless way of correcting this order-stamp
wraparound problem?

What is a stable priority queue?

Jul 22 '05 #4

"Aaron W. LaFramboise" <aa********@cox-internet.com> wrote in message

I understand that an easy way to make the standard std::priority_queue
stable is by including an integer stamp with each node that is
incremented each time a new node is pushed into the queue. However, no
matter what reasonably-sized type I use for the stamp, eventually the
stamp will 'wrap around' and possibly cause incorrect ordering of
elements. For my application, which queues elements very quickly and
runs for an indefinite amount of time, this scenario is a real concern,
and will eventually cause incorrect results.

Is there any easy and painless way of correcting this order-stamp
wraparound problem?

What is a stable priority queue?

Jul 22 '05 #5

Kevin Goodsell

Siemel Naran wrote:

What is a stable priority queue?

I'm guessing items of the same priority come out in the order they were
inserted.

-Kevin
--
My email address is valid, but changes periodically.
To contact me please use the address from a recent posting.

Jul 22 '05 #6

Kevin Goodsell

Siemel Naran wrote:

What is a stable priority queue?

Jul 22 '05 #7

Jack Klein

On Mon, 05 Apr 2004 14:57:53 -0500, "Aaron W. LaFramboise"
<aa********@cox-internet.com> wrote in comp.lang.c++:

Hello,

I understand that an easy way to make the standard std::priority_queue
stable is by including an integer stamp with each node that is
incremented each time a new node is pushed into the queue. However, no
matter what reasonably-sized type I use for the stamp, eventually the
stamp will 'wrap around' and possibly cause incorrect ordering of
elements. For my application, which queues elements very quickly and
runs for an indefinite amount of time, this scenario is a real concern,
and will eventually cause incorrect results.

Is there any easy and painless way of correcting this order-stamp
wraparound problem?
Aaron W. LaFramboise

Define the time stamp as an unsigned long (or unsigned long long, if
your compiler supports this extension from C), and do the increment
like this:

if (timestamp < ULONG_MAX) /* ULLONG_MAX */
++timestamp;

Don't forget to include <limits.h> or <climits>.

If you are really likely to exceed 0xffffffff, the minimum possible
value for ULONG_MAX, and your implementation doesn't support 64 bit
integer types (long long or __int64), you could always use a double or
long double.

--
Jack Klein
Home: http://JK-Technology.Com
FAQs for
comp.lang.c http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html
comp.lang.c++ http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/
alt.comp.lang.learn.c-c++
http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~a...FAQ-acllc.html

Jul 22 '05 #8

Jack Klein

On Mon, 05 Apr 2004 14:57:53 -0500, "Aaron W. LaFramboise"
<aa********@cox-internet.com> wrote in comp.lang.c++:

Hello,

I understand that an easy way to make the standard std::priority_queue
stable is by including an integer stamp with each node that is
incremented each time a new node is pushed into the queue. However, no
matter what reasonably-sized type I use for the stamp, eventually the
stamp will 'wrap around' and possibly cause incorrect ordering of
elements. For my application, which queues elements very quickly and
runs for an indefinite amount of time, this scenario is a real concern,
and will eventually cause incorrect results.

Is there any easy and painless way of correcting this order-stamp
wraparound problem?
Aaron W. LaFramboise

Jul 22 '05 #9

"Kevin Goodsell" <us*********************@neverbox.com> wrote in message

Siemel Naran wrote:

What is a stable priority queue?

I'm guessing items of the same priority come out in the order they were
inserted.

Then maybe we can use the protected member 'c'. The standard says

template <class T, class Container = std::vector<T>, ...>
class priority_queue {
protected:
Container c;
...
};

So we could derive our own class from priority_queue, and add read and write
functions that read directly into and out of 'c'. If deriving from a
non-polymorphic class bothers us, we can use private inheritance with using
declarations.

We could get stable queue's and stacks too.

Anyway, what is a priority_queue? Is it just like a queue, except that
items with the highest priority get retrieved by top() and pop() first? How
do they achieve O(lg(N)) for both push and pop (ie. how does the heap
work?).

Jul 22 '05 #10

"Kevin Goodsell" <us*********************@neverbox.com> wrote in message

Siemel Naran wrote:

What is a stable priority queue?

I'm guessing items of the same priority come out in the order they were
inserted.

Jul 22 '05 #11

"Aaron W. LaFramboise" <aa********@cox-internet.com> wrote:

I understand that an easy way to make the standard std::priority_queue
stable is by including an integer stamp with each node that is
incremented each time a new node is pushed into the queue. However, no
matter what reasonably-sized type I use for the stamp, eventually the
stamp will 'wrap around' and possibly cause incorrect ordering of
elements.
Use a 128-bit integer (eg. made out of four longs): I doubt that this one
will overflow on any currently available machine before the sun (note, not
the SUN) cheases to exist. Even if you account for faster processors you
should be on the safe side.
Is there any easy and painless way of correcting this order-stamp
wraparound problem?

It is hard to tell what you are really doing. If a O(log n) insert and
extract is all you need, in particular if you don't need to modify
priorities, a simple alternative is to use a map rather than a proper
priority queue: the map's key is the priority and the value is a queue
of items with the same priority. All you need to do is to provide a
suitable interface:

- empty() -> 'm.empty()'
- top() -> 'm.begin()->second.front()'
- pop() -> 'm.begin()->second.pop();
if (m.begin()->second.empty()) m.erase(m.begin())'
- push(e) -> 'm[e.priority].push(e)'

I don't think that any of the approach to priority queues is capable to
deal stability. At least, a vanilla implementation of all priority queues
I know (d-heap, priority queue, radix heap, splay heap) will not be stable.
I don't think that any of those heaps can be made inherently stable based
only on its operation, ie. you would always need some additional hack like
the sequence number.
--
<mailto:di***********@yahoo.com> <http://www.dietmar-kuehl.de/>
<www.contendix.com> - Software Development & Consulting

Jul 22 '05 #12

"Aaron W. LaFramboise" <aa********@cox-internet.com> wrote:

I understand that an easy way to make the standard std::priority_queue
stable is by including an integer stamp with each node that is
incremented each time a new node is pushed into the queue. However, no
matter what reasonably-sized type I use for the stamp, eventually the
stamp will 'wrap around' and possibly cause incorrect ordering of
elements.
Use a 128-bit integer (eg. made out of four longs): I doubt that this one
will overflow on any currently available machine before the sun (note, not
the SUN) cheases to exist. Even if you account for faster processors you
should be on the safe side.
Is there any easy and painless way of correcting this order-stamp
wraparound problem?

Jul 22 '05 #13

"Dietmar Kuehl" <di***********@yahoo.com> wrote

Use a 128-bit integer (eg. made out of four longs): I
doubt that this one will overflow on any currently available
machine before the sun (note, not the SUN) cheases to exist.
Even if you account for faster processors you should be
on the safe side.

Gaa! Do people no longer do basic back-of-the envelope calculations?

If a 5GHz computer had an integer increment that took only one CPU cycle and
did NOTHING but increment a 64-bit int 5 billion times per second 24-hours a
day without interruption, it would take 117 _YEARS_ before you ran out of
numbers!!! If you throw in the obligatory jump to implement the loop and
made the jump also take a single CPU cycle, the duration leaps to a whopping
234 years.

The most generous thing I can say about using a 128-bit integer for this
purpose is that it's absurdly over-engineered. There's a lot worse that
could be said about the idea.

Claudio Puviani

Jul 22 '05 #14

"Dietmar Kuehl" <di***********@yahoo.com> wrote

Use a 128-bit integer (eg. made out of four longs): I
doubt that this one will overflow on any currently available
machine before the sun (note, not the SUN) cheases to exist.
Even if you account for faster processors you should be
on the safe side.

Jul 22 '05 #15

Howard

"Claudio Puviani" <pu*****@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:0i*********************@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.n et...

"Dietmar Kuehl" <di***********@yahoo.com> wrote
Use a 128-bit integer (eg. made out of four longs): I
doubt that this one will overflow on any currently available
machine before the sun (note, not the SUN) cheases to exist.
Even if you account for faster processors you should be
on the safe side.
Gaa! Do people no longer do basic back-of-the envelope calculations?

If a 5GHz computer had an integer increment that took only one CPU cycle

and did NOTHING but increment a 64-bit int 5 billion times per second 24-hours a day without interruption, it would take 117 _YEARS_ before you ran out of
numbers!!! If you throw in the obligatory jump to implement the loop and
made the jump also take a single CPU cycle, the duration leaps to a whopping 234 years.

The most generous thing I can say about using a 128-bit integer for this
purpose is that it's absurdly over-engineered. There's a lot worse that
could be said about the idea.

Claudio Puviani

My envelopes must be old. They only support 32-bit math. :-)

-Howard

Jul 22 '05 #16

Howard

"Claudio Puviani" <pu*****@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:0i*********************@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.n et...

"Dietmar Kuehl" <di***********@yahoo.com> wrote
Use a 128-bit integer (eg. made out of four longs): I
doubt that this one will overflow on any currently available
machine before the sun (note, not the SUN) cheases to exist.
Even if you account for faster processors you should be
on the safe side.
Gaa! Do people no longer do basic back-of-the envelope calculations?

If a 5GHz computer had an integer increment that took only one CPU cycle

and did NOTHING but increment a 64-bit int 5 billion times per second 24-hours a day without interruption, it would take 117 _YEARS_ before you ran out of
numbers!!! If you throw in the obligatory jump to implement the loop and
made the jump also take a single CPU cycle, the duration leaps to a whopping 234 years.

The most generous thing I can say about using a 128-bit integer for this
purpose is that it's absurdly over-engineered. There's a lot worse that
could be said about the idea.

Claudio Puviani

My envelopes must be old. They only support 32-bit math. :-)

-Howard

Jul 22 '05 #17

Siemel Naran wrote:

Then maybe we can use the protected member 'c'.
'std::priority_queue' actually just uses 'std::make_heap', etc. Anyway,
accessing the member directly is no good: the internal organization of
the heap essentially makes immediate stability without some tool
impossible.
Anyway, what is a priority_queue? Is it just like a queue, except that
items with the highest priority get retrieved by top() and pop() first?
This is the interface description: It has operations 'empty()', 'top()',
'pop()', and 'push()' like a 'std::stack' and what a 'std::queue' should
have, too (unfortunately, the latter uses 'front()' instead of 'top()').
However, the internal organization of the priority queue is a little bit
more involved.
How do they achieve O(lg(N)) for both push and pop (ie. how does the heap
work?).

The essential idea of several heap structure is to maintain the heap
property: the heap is viewed as a tree and each tree has its minimum
element in the root (reverse the comparison and it has the maximum
element in the root; this does not really matter as long as you stick
with one definition - I will use the minimum). In the container stored
in the 'std::priority_queue' a binary tree is implicitly stored: the
element with index '0' is the root. The children of a node with index
'n' are the nodes with '2 * (n + 1) - 1' and '2 * (n + 1)'. The parent
of the node 'n' is the node '(n - 1) / 2' (I guess, I got the numbers
wrong somewhere; just draw a picture and number the nodes and things
should be relatively easy to work out). In any case, the tree is fully
balanced.

Inserting into a heap is pretty simple: you add a node to the lowest
level and exchange it with its parent if the parent has a bigger key.
This far, the representation of the tree does not at all matter and
other heaps, eg. a Fibonacci-heap, use a different structure than an
array to hold a heap although they also maintain the heap property.
Since the heap in the array is balanced, insertion takes at most
O(log n) steps.

Extracting from a heap, is also simple: you simply exchange the root
with the last element and bubble down the root again: check which of
the child nodes is the smaller one and exchange the node with this
child until the node is smaller than both children. This again takes
at most O(log n) steps.

This form of heap is called a "d-heap" in its general form where "d"
is the arity of the tree: the same approach works with non-binary
trees, too, although the computation of child and parent nodes changes
slightly. When I compared different priority queues, I found that
"d == 5" had the best performance for integer values stored in the
heap. An even bigger 'd' is probably better if the nodes itself become
bigger. Of course, this was based on a few tests with my own
implementation and probably does not hold up to a scientific analysis.

Other forms of priority queues provide additional capabilities, eg.
ability to change the key for the priority fast. Of some interest in
this direction are Fibonacci-heaps which can do changes of the keys
in such a form that it becomes amortized constant, at least when using
it for Dijkstra's algorithms for finding shortest paths (I don't
remember the details; it is possible that it is amortized constant in
general applications, too).
--
<mailto:di***********@yahoo.com> <http://www.dietmar-kuehl.de/>
<http://www.contendix.com> - Software Development & Consulting

Jul 22 '05 #18

Siemel Naran wrote:

Then maybe we can use the protected member 'c'.
'std::priority_queue' actually just uses 'std::make_heap', etc. Anyway,
accessing the member directly is no good: the internal organization of
the heap essentially makes immediate stability without some tool
impossible.
Anyway, what is a priority_queue? Is it just like a queue, except that
items with the highest priority get retrieved by top() and pop() first?
This is the interface description: It has operations 'empty()', 'top()',
'pop()', and 'push()' like a 'std::stack' and what a 'std::queue' should
have, too (unfortunately, the latter uses 'front()' instead of 'top()').
However, the internal organization of the priority queue is a little bit
more involved.
How do they achieve O(lg(N)) for both push and pop (ie. how does the heap
work?).

Jul 22 '05 #19

Claudio Puviani wrote:

"Dietmar Kuehl" <di***********@yahoo.com> wrote
Use a 128-bit integer (eg. made out of four longs): I
doubt that this one will overflow on any currently available
machine before the sun (note, not the SUN) cheases to exist.
Even if you account for faster processors you should be
on the safe side.
Gaa! Do people no longer do basic back-of-the envelope calculations?

I had to study mathematics because I'm notoriously bad at
calculating things and mathematics is the only more or less
technical topic where you don't need to do calculations - you
only prove that they can be done. With 128-bit I'm definitely
on the safe side...
If a 5GHz computer had an integer increment that took only one CPU cycle
and did NOTHING but increment a 64-bit int 5 billion times per second
24-hours a day without interruption, it would take 117 _YEARS_ before you
ran out of numbers!!! If you throw in the obligatory jump to implement the
loop and made the jump also take a single CPU cycle, the duration leaps to
a whopping 234 years.
Well, this computation seems reasonable (even though I'm not fit
to verifying it). Actually, the OP mentioned that this approach
does not work for him and all I wanted to do in this area is to
show that it is just a question of how many bits you spend to
make the approach work.
The most generous thing I can say about using a 128-bit integer for this
purpose is that it's absurdly over-engineered. There's a lot worse that
could be said about the idea.

To me, the difference of using 128-bits or 64-bits is not really
there: yes, I need twice as much memory but who cares? The template
class for doing simple arithmetics does not care how many (unsigned)
longs it takes for its representation and there is no portable
64-bit integer. Over-engineered? I'd say I was too lazy to do a more
precise computation.
--
<mailto:di***********@yahoo.com> <http://www.dietmar-kuehl.de/>
<http://www.contendix.com> - Software Development & Consulting

Jul 22 '05 #20

Claudio Puviani wrote:

"Dietmar Kuehl" <di***********@yahoo.com> wrote
Use a 128-bit integer (eg. made out of four longs): I
doubt that this one will overflow on any currently available
machine before the sun (note, not the SUN) cheases to exist.
Even if you account for faster processors you should be
on the safe side.
Gaa! Do people no longer do basic back-of-the envelope calculations?

I had to study mathematics because I'm notoriously bad at
calculating things and mathematics is the only more or less
technical topic where you don't need to do calculations - you
only prove that they can be done. With 128-bit I'm definitely
on the safe side...
If a 5GHz computer had an integer increment that took only one CPU cycle
and did NOTHING but increment a 64-bit int 5 billion times per second
24-hours a day without interruption, it would take 117 _YEARS_ before you
ran out of numbers!!! If you throw in the obligatory jump to implement the
loop and made the jump also take a single CPU cycle, the duration leaps to
a whopping 234 years.
Well, this computation seems reasonable (even though I'm not fit
to verifying it). Actually, the OP mentioned that this approach
does not work for him and all I wanted to do in this area is to
show that it is just a question of how many bits you spend to
make the approach work.
The most generous thing I can say about using a 128-bit integer for this
purpose is that it's absurdly over-engineered. There's a lot worse that
could be said about the idea.

Jul 22 '05 #21

"Dietmar Kuehl" <di***********@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:c4upai$2miv4i$1@ID-

Siemel Naran wrote:
Then maybe we can use the protected member 'c'.

'std::priority_queue' actually just uses 'std::make_heap', etc. Anyway,
accessing the member directly is no good: the internal organization of
the heap essentially makes immediate stability without some tool
impossible.

I don't understand what you mean. The protected member 'c' is already has
the data organized in the exact manner. Thus

void MyPriorityQueue::write() const {
std::ofstream file("MyPriorityQueue.dat");
file << c;
};

void MyPriorityQueue::read() const {
std::ifstream file("MyPriorityQueue.dat");
file >> c;
container_type c2 = c;
std::make_heap(c2.begin(), c2.end());
assert(std::equal(c2.begin(), c2.end(), c.begin());
};

How do they achieve O(lg(N)) for both push and pop (ie. how does the heap work?).

The essential idea of several heap structure is to maintain the heap
property: the heap is viewed as a tree and each tree has its minimum
element in the root (reverse the comparison and it has the maximum
element in the root; this does not really matter as long as you stick
with one definition - I will use the minimum). In the container stored
in the 'std::priority_queue' a binary tree is implicitly stored: the
element with index '0' is the root. The children of a node with index
'n' are the nodes with '2 * (n + 1) - 1' and '2 * (n + 1)'. The parent
of the node 'n' is the node '(n - 1) / 2' (I guess, I got the numbers
wrong somewhere; just draw a picture and number the nodes and things
should be relatively easy to work out). In any case, the tree is fully
balanced.

Thanks for jogging my memory. I implemented it once. It was an array of
fixed length (2^n)-1, and was essentially a perfectly balanced binary tree
stored in a regular C array.

Now out of curiosity, how much faster is a heap implemented through
std::priority_queue<T, std::vector<T>> using make_heap, over one implemented
through std::set<T>.

A related question. Have you or anyone measured the time improvement of
inserting N elements into a std::vector<T> using reserve(N) and
push_back(const value_type&) and calling strd::sort, versus inserting N
elements into a std::multimap<T> by calling insert(const value_type&)?

Inserting into a heap is pretty simple: you add a node to the lowest
level and exchange it with its parent if the parent has a bigger key.
This far, the representation of the tree does not at all matter and
other heaps, eg. a Fibonacci-heap, use a different structure than an
array to hold a heap although they also maintain the heap property.
Since the heap in the array is balanced, insertion takes at most
O(log n) steps.

Extracting from a heap, is also simple: you simply exchange the root
with the last element and bubble down the root again: check which of
the child nodes is the smaller one and exchange the node with this
child until the node is smaller than both children. This again takes
at most O(log n) steps.

This form of heap is called a "d-heap" in its general form where "d"
is the arity of the tree: the same approach works with non-binary
trees, too, although the computation of child and parent nodes changes
slightly. When I compared different priority queues, I found that
"d == 5" had the best performance for integer values stored in the
heap. An even bigger 'd' is probably better if the nodes itself become
bigger. Of course, this was based on a few tests with my own
implementation and probably does not hold up to a scientific analysis.
What does this term "arity" mean? Perhaps the heap I implemented has arity
= 2 because each parent has 2 children? What do you mean by the "nodes
itself become bigger"? Is it that sizeof(T) where T is the object stored in
the heap gets bigger, or that the number of nodes increases?
Other forms of priority queues provide additional capabilities, eg.
ability to change the key for the priority fast. Of some interest in
this direction are Fibonacci-heaps which can do changes of the keys
in such a form that it becomes amortized constant, at least when using
it for Dijkstra's algorithms for finding shortest paths (I don't
remember the details; it is possible that it is amortized constant in
general applications, too).

Thanks for the info. Changing a key in O(1) time is fascinating.

Jul 22 '05 #22

"Dietmar Kuehl" <di***********@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:c4upai$2miv4i$1@ID-

Siemel Naran wrote:
Then maybe we can use the protected member 'c'.

'std::priority_queue' actually just uses 'std::make_heap', etc. Anyway,
accessing the member directly is no good: the internal organization of
the heap essentially makes immediate stability without some tool
impossible.

I don't understand what you mean. The protected member 'c' is already has
the data organized in the exact manner. Thus

void MyPriorityQueue::write() const {
std::ofstream file("MyPriorityQueue.dat");
file << c;
};

void MyPriorityQueue::read() const {
std::ifstream file("MyPriorityQueue.dat");
file >> c;
container_type c2 = c;
std::make_heap(c2.begin(), c2.end());
assert(std::equal(c2.begin(), c2.end(), c.begin());
};

How do they achieve O(lg(N)) for both push and pop (ie. how does the heap work?).

The essential idea of several heap structure is to maintain the heap
property: the heap is viewed as a tree and each tree has its minimum
element in the root (reverse the comparison and it has the maximum
element in the root; this does not really matter as long as you stick
with one definition - I will use the minimum). In the container stored
in the 'std::priority_queue' a binary tree is implicitly stored: the
element with index '0' is the root. The children of a node with index
'n' are the nodes with '2 * (n + 1) - 1' and '2 * (n + 1)'. The parent
of the node 'n' is the node '(n - 1) / 2' (I guess, I got the numbers
wrong somewhere; just draw a picture and number the nodes and things
should be relatively easy to work out). In any case, the tree is fully
balanced.

Thanks for jogging my memory. I implemented it once. It was an array of
fixed length (2^n)-1, and was essentially a perfectly balanced binary tree
stored in a regular C array.

Now out of curiosity, how much faster is a heap implemented through
std::priority_queue<T, std::vector<T>> using make_heap, over one implemented
through std::set<T>.

A related question. Have you or anyone measured the time improvement of
inserting N elements into a std::vector<T> using reserve(N) and
push_back(const value_type&) and calling strd::sort, versus inserting N
elements into a std::multimap<T> by calling insert(const value_type&)?

Inserting into a heap is pretty simple: you add a node to the lowest
level and exchange it with its parent if the parent has a bigger key.
This far, the representation of the tree does not at all matter and
other heaps, eg. a Fibonacci-heap, use a different structure than an
array to hold a heap although they also maintain the heap property.
Since the heap in the array is balanced, insertion takes at most
O(log n) steps.

Extracting from a heap, is also simple: you simply exchange the root
with the last element and bubble down the root again: check which of
the child nodes is the smaller one and exchange the node with this
child until the node is smaller than both children. This again takes
at most O(log n) steps.

This form of heap is called a "d-heap" in its general form where "d"
is the arity of the tree: the same approach works with non-binary
trees, too, although the computation of child and parent nodes changes
slightly. When I compared different priority queues, I found that
"d == 5" had the best performance for integer values stored in the
heap. An even bigger 'd' is probably better if the nodes itself become
bigger. Of course, this was based on a few tests with my own
implementation and probably does not hold up to a scientific analysis.
What does this term "arity" mean? Perhaps the heap I implemented has arity
= 2 because each parent has 2 children? What do you mean by the "nodes
itself become bigger"? Is it that sizeof(T) where T is the object stored in
the heap gets bigger, or that the number of nodes increases?
Other forms of priority queues provide additional capabilities, eg.
ability to change the key for the priority fast. Of some interest in
this direction are Fibonacci-heaps which can do changes of the keys
in such a form that it becomes amortized constant, at least when using
it for Dijkstra's algorithms for finding shortest paths (I don't
remember the details; it is possible that it is amortized constant in
general applications, too).

Thanks for the info. Changing a key in O(1) time is fascinating.

Jul 22 '05 #23

"Claudio Puviani" <pu*****@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:0izcc.26080

Gaa! Do people no longer do basic back-of-the envelope calculations?

If a 5GHz computer had an integer increment that took only one CPU cycle and did NOTHING but increment a 64-bit int 5 billion times per second 24-hours a day without interruption, it would take 117 _YEARS_ before you ran out of
numbers!!! If you throw in the obligatory jump to implement the loop and
made the jump also take a single CPU cycle, the duration leaps to a whopping 234 years.
How do you get 117 years? In a 64 integer there are 2^64 = 1.84... * 10^19
possible numbers. In one year we can perform 86,400 seconds * 5 billion
increments/second = 4.32 * 10^14 increments. I believe 1 billion = 10^9.
Then 2^64 / 4.32e14 = 42700 years. What am I doing wrong in my calculation?

For 32 bit integers, I get 2^32 / 4.32e14 = 9.94e-6 years which is less than
one day.
So now the question is how to get a 64 bit integer. On some platforms, this
will be int, on others long, and on others long long. BTW, is long long a
standard type? My compiler Borland 6 accepts long long but not long long
long.

I thought people proposed adding int32, int64 to the standard. Is there any
update on this?

We could also use std::bitset<64>, but it doesn't have an operator++ or
operator+.

We could also use the sizeof trick though, which is a cool use of template
template parameters.

const int CHAR_BITS=8;
template <class T>
struct Eq16
{
static const bool result=((sizeof(T)*CHAR_BITS)==16);
};
void test_find_typelist(ostream& out)
{
typedef typelist<int, typelist<short, typelist<char> > > BasicTypes;
typedef find_typelist<Eq16, BasicTypes>::result int16;
out << sizeof(int16) << '\n'; // print 2
}

where

template <class T, class U=void>
struct typelist
{
typedef T car;
typedef U cdr;
};

template <template <class> class Predicate, class list>
struct typelist_find
{
typedef typename list::car car;
typedef typename list::cdr cdr;

typedef typename
template_if<
Predicate<car>::result,
car,
typename find_typelist<Predicate,cdr>::result :: result result;
};

template <template <class> class Predicate>
struct typelist_find<Predicate,void>
{
typedef void result;
};

The most generous thing I can say about using a 128-bit integer for this
purpose is that it's absurdly over-engineered. There's a lot worse that
could be said about the idea.

Such as?

Anyway, quantum computers of the future may indeed be much faster. But as a
practical matter I'd just use long long.

Jul 22 '05 #24

"Claudio Puviani" <pu*****@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:0izcc.26080

Gaa! Do people no longer do basic back-of-the envelope calculations?

If a 5GHz computer had an integer increment that took only one CPU cycle and did NOTHING but increment a 64-bit int 5 billion times per second 24-hours a day without interruption, it would take 117 _YEARS_ before you ran out of
numbers!!! If you throw in the obligatory jump to implement the loop and
made the jump also take a single CPU cycle, the duration leaps to a whopping 234 years.
How do you get 117 years? In a 64 integer there are 2^64 = 1.84... * 10^19
possible numbers. In one year we can perform 86,400 seconds * 5 billion
increments/second = 4.32 * 10^14 increments. I believe 1 billion = 10^9.
Then 2^64 / 4.32e14 = 42700 years. What am I doing wrong in my calculation?

For 32 bit integers, I get 2^32 / 4.32e14 = 9.94e-6 years which is less than
one day.
So now the question is how to get a 64 bit integer. On some platforms, this
will be int, on others long, and on others long long. BTW, is long long a
standard type? My compiler Borland 6 accepts long long but not long long
long.

I thought people proposed adding int32, int64 to the standard. Is there any
update on this?

We could also use std::bitset<64>, but it doesn't have an operator++ or
operator+.

We could also use the sizeof trick though, which is a cool use of template
template parameters.

const int CHAR_BITS=8;
template <class T>
struct Eq16
{
static const bool result=((sizeof(T)*CHAR_BITS)==16);
};
void test_find_typelist(ostream& out)
{
typedef typelist<int, typelist<short, typelist<char> > > BasicTypes;
typedef find_typelist<Eq16, BasicTypes>::result int16;
out << sizeof(int16) << '\n'; // print 2
}

where

template <class T, class U=void>
struct typelist
{
typedef T car;
typedef U cdr;
};

template <template <class> class Predicate, class list>
struct typelist_find
{
typedef typename list::car car;
typedef typename list::cdr cdr;

typedef typename
template_if<
Predicate<car>::result,
car,
typename find_typelist<Predicate,cdr>::result :: result result;
};

template <template <class> class Predicate>
struct typelist_find<Predicate,void>
{
typedef void result;
};

The most generous thing I can say about using a 128-bit integer for this
purpose is that it's absurdly over-engineered. There's a lot worse that
could be said about the idea.

Such as?

Anyway, quantum computers of the future may indeed be much faster. But as a
practical matter I'd just use long long.

Jul 22 '05 #25

Rob Williscroft

Siemel Naran wrote in
news:Fc********************@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net:

How do you get 117 years? In a 64 integer there are 2^64 = 1.84... *
10^19 possible numbers. In one year we can perform 86,400 seconds * 5
billion increments/second = 4.32 * 10^14 increments. I believe 1
billion = 10^9. Then 2^64 / 4.32e14 = 42700 years. What am I doing
wrong in my calculation?

For 32 bit integers, I get 2^32 / 4.32e14 = 9.94e-6 years which is
less than one day.

86,400 == 24 * 60 * 60 i.e. the No. of seconds in 1 day *not* 1 year.

I put 'days in a year' into google and got:

1 year = 365.242199 days, following there calculator link I did:

42700 / 365.242199 and got:

42700 / 365.242199 = 116.908726

Rob.
--
http://www.victim-prime.dsl.pipex.com/

Jul 22 '05 #26

Rob Williscroft

Siemel Naran wrote in
news:Fc********************@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net:

How do you get 117 years? In a 64 integer there are 2^64 = 1.84... *
10^19 possible numbers. In one year we can perform 86,400 seconds * 5
billion increments/second = 4.32 * 10^14 increments. I believe 1
billion = 10^9. Then 2^64 / 4.32e14 = 42700 years. What am I doing
wrong in my calculation?

For 32 bit integers, I get 2^32 / 4.32e14 = 9.94e-6 years which is
less than one day.

Jul 22 '05 #27

Buster

Siemel Naran wrote:

So now the question is how to get a 64 bit integer. On some platforms, this
will be int, on others long, and on others long long. BTW, is long long a
standard type? My compiler Borland 6 accepts long long but not long long
long.

#include <boost/cstdint.hpp>

uint64_t n;

--
Regards,
Buster.

Jul 22 '05 #28

Buster

Siemel Naran wrote:

So now the question is how to get a 64 bit integer. On some platforms, this
will be int, on others long, and on others long long. BTW, is long long a
standard type? My compiler Borland 6 accepts long long but not long long
long.

#include <boost/cstdint.hpp>

uint64_t n;

--
Regards,
Buster.

Jul 22 '05 #29

"Siemel Naran" <Si*********@REMOVE.att.net> wrote:

Siemel Naran wrote:
Then maybe we can use the protected member 'c'.

'std::priority_queue' actually just uses 'std::make_heap', etc. Anyway,
accessing the member directly is no good: the internal organization of
the heap essentially makes immediate stability without some tool
impossible.

I don't understand what you mean. The protected member 'c' is already has
the data organized in the exact manner.

The problem is, that you cannot get stable behavior of the priority queue
through simply manipulating the member 'c' in an 'std::priority_queue'.
The way elements in a priority queue simple does not provide any useful
form of stability - unless you somehow encode the order in the key used
for comparison.
Thanks for jogging my memory. I implemented it once. It was an array of
fixed length (2^n)-1, and was essentially a perfectly balanced binary tree
stored in a regular C array.
I implemented a bunch of heap variations, including two array based version
(one allowing key modification, the other not allowing it; the one allowing
key modifications is a *lot* slower!). The implementation should be available
from <http://www.dietmar-kuehl.de/cxxrt/heaps.tar.gz>.
Now out of curiosity, how much faster is a heap implemented through
std::priority_queue<T, std::vector<T>> using make_heap, over one implemented
through std::set<T>.
It depends somewhat on 'T': if 'T' is expensive to copy or swap, the vector
version will probably eventually become slower with increasing costs. For
'T' being something like 'int' the vector version is something like ten
times faster than typical node based approaches, including sets. At least,
this is what I seem to remember from running very naive tests.
A related question. Have you or anyone measured the time improvement of
inserting N elements into a std::vector<T> using reserve(N) and
push_back(const value_type&) and calling strd::sort, versus inserting N
elements into a std::multimap<T> by calling insert(const value_type&)?
I don't know for the inserts themselves but if the set of elements is fixed,
using an array with binary search is *much* faster than using 'std::map' or
'std::multimap' (again, I don't have current figures...). Likewise, a hash
(see eg. the library TR's 'std::tr1::unordered_map' and
'std::tr1::unordered_multimap') is much faster. Of course, these figure also
depend somewhat on the data types.

This form of heap is called a "d-heap" in its general form where "d"
is the arity of the tree: the same approach works with non-binary
trees, too, although the computation of child and parent nodes changes
slightly. When I compared different priority queues, I found that
"d == 5" had the best performance for integer values stored in the
heap. An even bigger 'd' is probably better if the nodes itself become
bigger. Of course, this was based on a few tests with my own
implementation and probably does not hold up to a scientific analysis.

What does this term "arity" mean? Perhaps the heap I implemented has arity
= 2 because each parent has 2 children?

Yes, this is what I mean with "arity": the [maximum] number of children of a
node. Of course, in a d-heap only leaves and at most one other node have less
than 'd' children.
What do you mean by the "nodes itself become bigger"? Is it that sizeof(T)
where T is the object stored in the heap gets bigger, or that the number of
nodes increases?
I mean 'sizeof(T)', ie. the data stored in a node: with bigger 'd' the number
of necessary moves when modifying the heap becomes smaller. If the type 'T'
is "bigger" or at least more expensive to move, the cost of the moves
are more dominant than the costs of other operations.

[relating to Fibonacci-heaps]
Thanks for the info. Changing a key in O(1) time is fascinating.

It is not O(1), it is *amortized* O(1): occasionally a higher costs is
incurred but if this cost can be averaged over multiple operations and
then becomes O(1) again. Of course, changing the key involves reordering
the corresponding node such that the other performance guarantees still
hold. Just the actual change of the key is trivially O(1) but doing the
reordering in amortized O(1) is somewhat tricky.
--
<mailto:di***********@yahoo.com> <http://www.dietmar-kuehl.de/>
<www.contendix.com> - Software Development & Consulting

Jul 22 '05 #30

"Siemel Naran" <Si*********@REMOVE.att.net> wrote:

Siemel Naran wrote:
Then maybe we can use the protected member 'c'.

'std::priority_queue' actually just uses 'std::make_heap', etc. Anyway,
accessing the member directly is no good: the internal organization of
the heap essentially makes immediate stability without some tool
impossible.

I don't understand what you mean. The protected member 'c' is already has
the data organized in the exact manner.

The problem is, that you cannot get stable behavior of the priority queue
through simply manipulating the member 'c' in an 'std::priority_queue'.
The way elements in a priority queue simple does not provide any useful
form of stability - unless you somehow encode the order in the key used
for comparison.
Thanks for jogging my memory. I implemented it once. It was an array of
fixed length (2^n)-1, and was essentially a perfectly balanced binary tree
stored in a regular C array.
I implemented a bunch of heap variations, including two array based version
(one allowing key modification, the other not allowing it; the one allowing
key modifications is a *lot* slower!). The implementation should be available
from <http://www.dietmar-kuehl.de/cxxrt/heaps.tar.gz>.
Now out of curiosity, how much faster is a heap implemented through
std::priority_queue<T, std::vector<T>> using make_heap, over one implemented
through std::set<T>.
It depends somewhat on 'T': if 'T' is expensive to copy or swap, the vector
version will probably eventually become slower with increasing costs. For
'T' being something like 'int' the vector version is something like ten
times faster than typical node based approaches, including sets. At least,
this is what I seem to remember from running very naive tests.
A related question. Have you or anyone measured the time improvement of
inserting N elements into a std::vector<T> using reserve(N) and
push_back(const value_type&) and calling strd::sort, versus inserting N
elements into a std::multimap<T> by calling insert(const value_type&)?
I don't know for the inserts themselves but if the set of elements is fixed,
using an array with binary search is *much* faster than using 'std::map' or
'std::multimap' (again, I don't have current figures...). Likewise, a hash
(see eg. the library TR's 'std::tr1::unordered_map' and
'std::tr1::unordered_multimap') is much faster. Of course, these figure also
depend somewhat on the data types.

This form of heap is called a "d-heap" in its general form where "d"
is the arity of the tree: the same approach works with non-binary
trees, too, although the computation of child and parent nodes changes
slightly. When I compared different priority queues, I found that
"d == 5" had the best performance for integer values stored in the
heap. An even bigger 'd' is probably better if the nodes itself become
bigger. Of course, this was based on a few tests with my own
implementation and probably does not hold up to a scientific analysis.

What does this term "arity" mean? Perhaps the heap I implemented has arity
= 2 because each parent has 2 children?

Yes, this is what I mean with "arity": the [maximum] number of children of a
node. Of course, in a d-heap only leaves and at most one other node have less
than 'd' children.
What do you mean by the "nodes itself become bigger"? Is it that sizeof(T)
where T is the object stored in the heap gets bigger, or that the number of
nodes increases?
I mean 'sizeof(T)', ie. the data stored in a node: with bigger 'd' the number
of necessary moves when modifying the heap becomes smaller. If the type 'T'
is "bigger" or at least more expensive to move, the cost of the moves
are more dominant than the costs of other operations.

[relating to Fibonacci-heaps]
Thanks for the info. Changing a key in O(1) time is fascinating.

Jul 22 '05 #31

Aaron W. LaFramboise

Claudio Puviani wrote:

Gaa! Do people no longer do basic back-of-the envelope calculations?
Yes, in fact.

If a 5GHz computer had an integer increment that took only one CPU cycle and
did NOTHING but increment a 64-bit int 5 billion times per second 24-hours a
day without interruption, it would take 117 _YEARS_ before you ran out of
numbers!!! If you throw in the obligatory jump to implement the loop and
made the jump also take a single CPU cycle, the duration leaps to a whopping
234 years.
Well, my original question was related to a rewrite of some fairly
critical support code within a library that my organization intends to
reuse for many projects in the future. It is the intent that the code
be written such that its useful lifetime may be maximized. Certainly,
the code is expected to be useful for at least a decade.

Lets say this code is eventually applied to some sort of computer
intended to run for a year without restarting. (Not coincidentally,
this is the goal for some of our present systems.) If a 64-bit integer
was used, as I assume you are suggesting, that would mean the processor
or processors handling this queue could handle no more than about
600,000,000,000 elements per second. You are quite right to note that
the best processor availible presently at a reasonable price is safe by
a margin of several orders of magnitude. However, in ten years, do you
think you will still be safe? What about multiprocessor systems, which,
by the way, many are predicting will someday be commonplace in even
ordinary PCs? I don't know about you, but ten years ago, I think I was
using a 32MHz 386.

The most generous thing I can say about using a 128-bit integer for this
purpose is that it's absurdly over-engineered. There's a lot worse that
could be said about the idea.

Speaking of absurd engineering:

unsigned long long stamp; /* XXX FIXME hello if you are a programmer
working on this code in 2014, could you please check to make sure this
is still big enough? */

I have been trained--and I beleive the training to be good--to not make
assumptions in code I write that may well not be true in the foreseeable
future. That is largely why I posted to this group.

On the other hand, I would feel a lot better about using 96 bits or 128
bits. By the time those integers would overflow, with any luck, I'll be
a rich, retired man. I was concerned, though, that the stamp portion of
the queue element was a lot larger than the rest of the data, and this
would have an unfortunate effect on efficiency. Oh well. :)

I wonder if people posting concerns about Y2K wraparound in the 1980's
were also flamed?
Aaron W. LaFramboise

Jul 22 '05 #32

Aaron W. LaFramboise

Claudio Puviani wrote:

Gaa! Do people no longer do basic back-of-the envelope calculations?
Yes, in fact.

If a 5GHz computer had an integer increment that took only one CPU cycle and
did NOTHING but increment a 64-bit int 5 billion times per second 24-hours a
day without interruption, it would take 117 _YEARS_ before you ran out of
numbers!!! If you throw in the obligatory jump to implement the loop and
made the jump also take a single CPU cycle, the duration leaps to a whopping
234 years.
Well, my original question was related to a rewrite of some fairly
critical support code within a library that my organization intends to
reuse for many projects in the future. It is the intent that the code
be written such that its useful lifetime may be maximized. Certainly,
the code is expected to be useful for at least a decade.

Lets say this code is eventually applied to some sort of computer
intended to run for a year without restarting. (Not coincidentally,
this is the goal for some of our present systems.) If a 64-bit integer
was used, as I assume you are suggesting, that would mean the processor
or processors handling this queue could handle no more than about
600,000,000,000 elements per second. You are quite right to note that
the best processor availible presently at a reasonable price is safe by
a margin of several orders of magnitude. However, in ten years, do you
think you will still be safe? What about multiprocessor systems, which,
by the way, many are predicting will someday be commonplace in even
ordinary PCs? I don't know about you, but ten years ago, I think I was
using a 32MHz 386.

The most generous thing I can say about using a 128-bit integer for this
purpose is that it's absurdly over-engineered. There's a lot worse that
could be said about the idea.

Jul 22 '05 #33

"Dietmar Kuehl" <di***********@yahoo.com> wrote in message

"Siemel Naran" <Si*********@REMOVE.att.net> wrote:
Then maybe we can use the protected member 'c'. 'std::priority_queue' actually just uses 'std::make_heap', etc. Anyway,
accessing the member directly is no good: the internal organization of
the heap essentially makes immediate stability without some tool
impossible.
I don't understand what you mean. The protected member 'c' is already has the data organized in the exact manner.
The problem is, that you cannot get stable behavior of the priority queue
through simply manipulating the member 'c' in an 'std::priority_queue'.
The way elements in a priority queue simple does not provide any useful
form of stability - unless you somehow encode the order in the key used
for comparison.

Why not? Yes, it could be a problem if we write the container 'c' in one
platform/compiler that implements heaps one way, then read the container 'c'
in another platform/compiler that implements heaps another way. But if we
read and write on the same platform it should be OK, right?

Thanks for jogging my memory. I implemented it once. It was an array of fixed length (2^n)-1, and was essentially a perfectly balanced binary tree stored in a regular C array.

I implemented a bunch of heap variations, including two array based

version (one allowing key modification, the other not allowing it; the one allowing key modifications is a *lot* slower!). The implementation should be available from <http://www.dietmar-kuehl.de/cxxrt/heaps.tar.gz>.
Thanks for this and all the other info.

I think if T objects get big we could use shared_ptr<T> objects instead.

Now out of curiosity, how much faster is a heap implemented through
std::priority_queue<T, std::vector<T>> using make_heap, over one implemented through std::set<T>.

It depends somewhat on 'T': if 'T' is expensive to copy or swap, the

vector version will probably eventually become slower with increasing costs. For
'T' being something like 'int' the vector version is something like ten
times faster than typical node based approaches, including sets. At least,
this is what I seem to remember from running very naive tests.
A related question. Have you or anyone measured the time improvement of
inserting N elements into a std::vector<T> using reserve(N) and
push_back(const value_type&) and calling strd::sort, versus inserting N
elements into a std::multimap<T> by calling insert(const value_type&)?
I don't know for the inserts themselves but if the set of elements is

fixed, using an array with binary search is *much* faster than using 'std::map' or 'std::multimap' (again, I don't have current figures...). Likewise, a hash
(see eg. the library TR's 'std::tr1::unordered_map' and
'std::tr1::unordered_multimap') is much faster. Of course, these figure also depend somewhat on the data types.
This form of heap is called a "d-heap" in its general form where "d"
is the arity of the tree: the same approach works with non-binary
trees, too, although the computation of child and parent nodes changes
slightly. When I compared different priority queues, I found that
"d == 5" had the best performance for integer values stored in the
heap. An even bigger 'd' is probably better if the nodes itself become
bigger. Of course, this was based on a few tests with my own
implementation and probably does not hold up to a scientific analysis.
What does this term "arity" mean? Perhaps the heap I implemented has arity = 2 because each parent has 2 children?

Yes, this is what I mean with "arity": the [maximum] number of children of

a node. Of course, in a d-heap only leaves and at most one other node have less than 'd' children.
What do you mean by the "nodes itself become bigger"? Is it that sizeof(T) where T is the object stored in the heap gets bigger, or that the number of nodes increases?
I mean 'sizeof(T)', ie. the data stored in a node: with bigger 'd' the

number of necessary moves when modifying the heap becomes smaller. If the type 'T' is "bigger" or at least more expensive to move, the cost of the moves
are more dominant than the costs of other operations.

[relating to Fibonacci-heaps]
Thanks for the info. Changing a key in O(1) time is fascinating.

It is not O(1), it is *amortized* O(1): occasionally a higher costs is
incurred but if this cost can be averaged over multiple operations and
then becomes O(1) again. Of course, changing the key involves reordering
the corresponding node such that the other performance guarantees still
hold. Just the actual change of the key is trivially O(1) but doing the
reordering in amortized O(1) is somewhat tricky.

Jul 22 '05 #34

"Dietmar Kuehl" <di***********@yahoo.com> wrote in message

"Siemel Naran" <Si*********@REMOVE.att.net> wrote:
Then maybe we can use the protected member 'c'. 'std::priority_queue' actually just uses 'std::make_heap', etc. Anyway,
accessing the member directly is no good: the internal organization of
the heap essentially makes immediate stability without some tool
impossible.
I don't understand what you mean. The protected member 'c' is already has the data organized in the exact manner.
The problem is, that you cannot get stable behavior of the priority queue
through simply manipulating the member 'c' in an 'std::priority_queue'.
The way elements in a priority queue simple does not provide any useful
form of stability - unless you somehow encode the order in the key used
for comparison.

Why not? Yes, it could be a problem if we write the container 'c' in one
platform/compiler that implements heaps one way, then read the container 'c'
in another platform/compiler that implements heaps another way. But if we
read and write on the same platform it should be OK, right?

Thanks for jogging my memory. I implemented it once. It was an array of fixed length (2^n)-1, and was essentially a perfectly balanced binary tree stored in a regular C array.

I implemented a bunch of heap variations, including two array based

version (one allowing key modification, the other not allowing it; the one allowing key modifications is a *lot* slower!). The implementation should be available from <http://www.dietmar-kuehl.de/cxxrt/heaps.tar.gz>.
Thanks for this and all the other info.

I think if T objects get big we could use shared_ptr<T> objects instead.

Now out of curiosity, how much faster is a heap implemented through
std::priority_queue<T, std::vector<T>> using make_heap, over one implemented through std::set<T>.

It depends somewhat on 'T': if 'T' is expensive to copy or swap, the

vector version will probably eventually become slower with increasing costs. For
'T' being something like 'int' the vector version is something like ten
times faster than typical node based approaches, including sets. At least,
this is what I seem to remember from running very naive tests.
A related question. Have you or anyone measured the time improvement of
inserting N elements into a std::vector<T> using reserve(N) and
push_back(const value_type&) and calling strd::sort, versus inserting N
elements into a std::multimap<T> by calling insert(const value_type&)?
I don't know for the inserts themselves but if the set of elements is

fixed, using an array with binary search is *much* faster than using 'std::map' or 'std::multimap' (again, I don't have current figures...). Likewise, a hash
(see eg. the library TR's 'std::tr1::unordered_map' and
'std::tr1::unordered_multimap') is much faster. Of course, these figure also depend somewhat on the data types.
This form of heap is called a "d-heap" in its general form where "d"
is the arity of the tree: the same approach works with non-binary
trees, too, although the computation of child and parent nodes changes
slightly. When I compared different priority queues, I found that
"d == 5" had the best performance for integer values stored in the
heap. An even bigger 'd' is probably better if the nodes itself become
bigger. Of course, this was based on a few tests with my own
implementation and probably does not hold up to a scientific analysis.
What does this term "arity" mean? Perhaps the heap I implemented has arity = 2 because each parent has 2 children?

Yes, this is what I mean with "arity": the [maximum] number of children of

a node. Of course, in a d-heap only leaves and at most one other node have less than 'd' children.
What do you mean by the "nodes itself become bigger"? Is it that sizeof(T) where T is the object stored in the heap gets bigger, or that the number of nodes increases?
I mean 'sizeof(T)', ie. the data stored in a node: with bigger 'd' the

number of necessary moves when modifying the heap becomes smaller. If the type 'T' is "bigger" or at least more expensive to move, the cost of the moves
are more dominant than the costs of other operations.

[relating to Fibonacci-heaps]
Thanks for the info. Changing a key in O(1) time is fascinating.

It is not O(1), it is *amortized* O(1): occasionally a higher costs is
incurred but if this cost can be averaged over multiple operations and
then becomes O(1) again. Of course, changing the key involves reordering
the corresponding node such that the other performance guarantees still
hold. Just the actual change of the key is trivially O(1) but doing the
reordering in amortized O(1) is somewhat tricky.

Jul 22 '05 #35

"Siemel Naran" <Si*********@REMOVE.att.net> wrote in message
news:FcQcc.30166

We could also use std::bitset<64>, but it doesn't have an operator++ or
operator+.

Anyway know how to implement a quick operator++ for std::bitset?

Jul 22 '05 #36

"Siemel Naran" <Si*********@REMOVE.att.net> wrote in message
news:FcQcc.30166

We could also use std::bitset<64>, but it doesn't have an operator++ or
operator+.

Anyway know how to implement a quick operator++ for std::bitset?

Jul 22 '05 #37

"Siemel Naran" <Si*********@REMOVE.att.net> wrote

"Claudio Puviani" <pu*****@hotmail.com> wrote
If a 5GHz computer had an integer increment that
took only one CPU cycle and did NOTHING but increment
a 64-bit int 5 billion times per second 24-hours a day without
interruption, it would take 117 _YEARS_ before you ran out
of numbers!!! If you throw in the obligatory jump to implement
the loop and made the jump also take a single CPU cycle, the
duration leaps to a whopping 234 years.

How do you get 117 years? In a 64 integer there are 2^64 =
1.84... * 10^19 possible numbers. In one year we can perform
86,400 seconds * 5 billion increments/second = 4.32 * 10^14
increments. I believe 1 billion = 10^9. Then 2^64 / 4.32e14 =
42700 years. What am I doing wrong in my calculation?

Ops/sec = 5e9
Ops/min = 5e9 ops/sec * 60 sec/min = 3e11
Ops/hr = 3e11 ops/min * 60 min/hr = 1.8e13
Ops/day = 1.8e13 ops/hr * 24 hr/day = 4.32e14
Ops/yr = 4.32e14 ops/day * 365 day/year = 1.577e17
Ops = 2^64 = 1.84e19
Duration = 1.84e19 ops / 1.577e17 ops/yr = 117 years

It looks like you just forgot to factor in the 365 days per year.

Claudio Puviani

Jul 22 '05 #38