Re^5: Heap sorting in perl

In said note, blakem writes:

Heap sorting is attractive because selecting the smallest M elements from a dataset of size N (N being much larger than M) requires storing only M elements in memory at any one time.

That means that he can very well store the entire heap, the M elements, in memory.

Makeshifts last the longest.

Comment on Re^5: Heap sorting in perl

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Re: Re^5: Heap sorting in perl by Anonymous Monk on Apr 07, 2003 at 11:33 UTC
Abigail's original solution as I read it requires that the entire dataset of size N be passed into the function smallest(). This requires that you have enough memory for N things up front. Which is the original poster's problem, he doesn't. He only comfortably has room for M things, but is fetching through a much larger dataset of N. Abigail's follow-up solution resolves this limitation admirably well...	[reply]

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Re: Re^5: Heap sorting in perl
by Anonymous Monk on Apr 07, 2003 at 11:33 UTC

Abigail

Abigail's follow-up solution resolves this limitation admirably well...

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