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 <email@example.com> in the news group comp.theory 13 January 1999.
If you have suggestions, corrections, or comments, please get in touch with Paul Black.
Entry modified 17 December 2004.
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Cite this as:
Paul E. Black, "hash heap", in Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures [online], Vreda Pieterse and Paul E. Black, eds. 17 December 2004. (accessed TODAY) Available from: http://www.nist.gov/dads/HTML/hashheap.html