Double-Ended Heaps

[Scott David Daniels]

Bryan Olson wrote:
>     Note that any change to the contents of a DeHeap (and
>     therefore a DeHeap2) any re-arrange the indices of a
>     number of entries in the DeHeap.

Yup, thanks (I'll tweak it tomorrow).

> A useful Python class will follow Python convention, where
> relevant convention exists. In this case that means optionally
> passing the ordering relation; look at sort() and sorted().

That will be built from these.  I have a little prototype,
but no tests yet.

> Adopting the convention will raises another issue: distinct
> objects can compare as equal, so the DeHeap2 operations that
> find items by value will be at least under-defined, and maybe
> even broken. 
Actually, the issue already exists for elements which define
their own __lt__ function.  The rule I will use is that you have
told the DeHeap to delete some member equal to the given value.

--Scott David Daniels
scott.daniels at acm.org