# The soft heap: an approximate priority queue with optimal error rate

@article{Chazelle2000TheSH,
title={The soft heap: an approximate priority queue with optimal error rate},
author={Bernard Chazelle},
journal={J. ACM},
year={2000},
volume={47},
pages={1012-1027}
}
• B. Chazelle
• Published 1 November 2000
• Computer Science
• J. ACM
A simple variant of a priority queue, called a soft heap, is introduced. The data structure supports the usual operations: insert, delete, meld, and findmin. Its novelty is to beat the logarithmic bound on the complexity of a heap in a comparison-based model. To break this information-theoretic barrier, the entropy of the data structure is reduced by artifically raising the values of certain keys. Given any mixed sequence of n operations, a soft heap with error rate ε (for any 0 < ε ≤ 1/2…
77 Citations

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