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Max Heap and Min Heap

Binary Tree book by OpenGenus

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Reading time: 45 minutes

Heap is a binary tree with two special properties: it must have all its nodes in specific order and its shape must be complete.

Keep in mind-

  • We can have duplicate values in a heap — there’s no restriction against that.
  • A heap doesn’t follow the rules of a binary search tree; unlike binary search trees, the left node does not have to be smaller than the right node! The ordering of the child nodes isn’t important for a heap; the only ordering that matters is the heap-order property, or the ordering of parent nodes compared to their children.

Heap can be broadly classified in two types :
1. Min heap
2. Max heap

Min Heap

A min heap is a heap where every single parent node, including the root, is less than or equal to the value of its children nodes.
The most important property of a min heap is that the node with the smallest, or minimum value, will always be the root node.
Min-Heap

Max Heap

A max heap is effectively the converse of a min heap; in this format, every parent node, including the root, is greater than or equal to the value of its children nodes.
The important property of a max heap is that the node with the largest, or maximum value will always be at the root node.
Max-Heap

Implementation

  1. Use array to store the data.
  2. Start storing from index 1, not 0.
  3. For any given node at position i:
    • Its Left Child is at [2*i] if available.
    • Its right child is at [2*i+1] if available.
    • Its Parent Node is at [i/2] if available.

Heap Majorly has 3 operations –

  • Insert Operation(Time complexity O(log n))
  • Delete Operation (Time complexity O(log n))
  • Extract-Min (OR Extract-Max) (Time complexity O(n))

Insert Operation

Steps:

  • Add the element at the bottom leaf of the Heap.
  • Perform the Bubble-Up operation.
  • All Insert Operations must perform the bubble-up operation(it is also called as up-heap, percolate-up, sift-up, trickle-up, heapify-up, or cascade-up)

Psuedocode

MIN-HEAP-INSERT(A,key)
heap-size[A] <- heap-size[A] + 1
A[heap-size[A]] <- +inf
HEAP-DECREASE-KEY(A,heap-size[A],key)

Bubble-up Operation

Steps:

  • If inserted element is smaller than its parent node in case of Min-Heap OR greater than its parent node in case of Max-Heap, swap the element with its parent.
  • Keep repeating the above step, if node reaches its correct position, STOP.
    Insert-Bubble-Up-Min-Heap

Extract-Min OR Extract-Max Operation

Steps:

  • Take out the element from the root.( it will be minimum in case of Min-Heap and maximum in case of Max-Heap).
  • Take out the last element from the last level from the heap and replace the root with the element.
  • Perform Sink-Down.
  • All delete operation must perform Sink-Down Operation ( also known as bubble-down, percolate-down, sift-down, trickle down, heapify-down, cascade-down).

Psuedocode:

HEAP-EXTRACT-MIN(A)
if heap-size[A] < 1
then error ‘‘heap underflow’’
min <- A[1]
A[1] <- A[heap-size[A]]
heap-size[A] <- heap-size[A] - 1
MIN-HEAPIFY(A,1)
return min

Delete-OR-Extract-Min-from-Heap

Sink-Down Operation

Steps:

  • If replaced element is greater than any of its child node in case of Min-Heap OR smaller than any if its child node in case of Max-Heap, swap the element with its smallest child(Min-Heap) or with its greatest child(Max-Heap).
  • Keep repeating the above step, if node reaches its correct position, STOP.

Psuedocode:

HEAP-DECREASE-KEY(A,i,key)
if key > A[i]
then error ‘‘new key is larger than current key’’
A[i] <- key
while i > 1 and A[parent(i)] > A[i]
do exchange A[i] <-> A[parent(i)]
i <- parent(i)

Delete Operation

Steps:

  • Find the index for the element to be deleted.
  • Take out the last element from the last level from the heap and replace the index with this element .
  • Perform Sink-Down.

Complete implementation of Min-heap in Java

public class minHeap {
    public int capacity;
    public int [] mH;
    public int currentSize;
    public minHeap(int capacity){
        this.capacity=capacity;
        mH = new int [capacity+1];
       currentSize =0;
    }
    public void createHeap(int [] arrA){
        if(arrA.length>0){
            for(int i=0;i<arrA.length;i++){
                insert(arrA[i]);
            }
        }
    }
    public void display(){
        for(int i=1;i<mH.length;i++){
            System.out.print(" " + mH[i]);
        }
        System.out.println("");
    }
    public void insert(int x) {
        if(currentSize==capacity){
            System.out.println("heap is full");
            return;
        }
        currentSize++;
        int idx = currentSize;
        mH[idx] = x;
        bubbleUp(idx);
    }

    public void bubbleUp(int pos) {
        int parentIdx = pos/2;
        int currentIdx = pos;
        while (currentIdx > 0 && mH[parentIdx] > mH[currentIdx]) {

            swap(currentIdx,parentIdx);
            currentIdx = parentIdx;
            parentIdx = parentIdx/2;
        }
    }

    public int extractMin() {
        int min = mH[1];
        mH[1] = mH[currentSize];
        mH[currentSize] = 0;
        sinkDown(1);
        currentSize--;
        return min;
    }

    public void sinkDown(int k) {
        int smallest = k;
        int leftChildIdx = 2 * k;
        int rightChildIdx = 2 * k+1;
        if (leftChildIdx < heapSize() && mH[smallest] > mH[leftChildIdx]) {
            smallest = leftChildIdx;
        }
        if (rightChildIdx < heapSize() && mH[smallest] > mH[rightChildIdx]) {
            smallest = rightChildIdx;
        }
        if (smallest != k) {

            swap(k, smallest);
            sinkDown(smallest);
        }
    }

    public void swap(int a, int b) {
        int temp = mH[a];
        mH[a] = mH[b];
        mH[b] = temp;
    }
    public boolean isEmpty() {
        return currentSize == 0;
    }

    public int heapSize(){
        return currentSize;
    }

    public static void main(String args[]){
        int arrA [] = {3,2,1,7,8,4,10,16,12};
        System.out.print("Original Array : ");
        for(int i=0;i<arrA.length;i++){
            System.out.print("  " + arrA[i]);
        }
        minHeap m = new minHeap(arrA.length);
        System.out.print("\nMin-Heap : ");
        m.createHeap(arrA);
        m.display();
        System.out.print("Extract Min :");
        for(int i=0;i<arrA.length;i++){
            System.out.print("  " + m.extractMin());
        }
    }
}

Output

Original Array :   3  2  1  7  8  4  10  16  12
Min-Heap :  1 3 2 7 8 4 10 16 12
Extract Min :  1  2  3  4  7  8  10  12  16

Complete implementation of Max-heap in Java

public class maxHeap {
    public int capacity;
    public int [] mH;
    public int currentSize;
    public maxHeap(int capacity){
        this.capacity=capacity;
        mH = new int [capacity+1];
       currentSize =0;
    }
    public void createHeap(int [] arrA){
        if(arrA.length>0){
            for(int i=0;i<arrA.length;i++){
                insert(arrA[i]);
            }
        }
    }
    public void display(){
        for(int i=1;i<mH.length;i++){
            System.out.print(" " + mH[i]);
        }
        System.out.println("");
    }
    public void insert(int x) {
        if(currentSize==capacity){
            System.out.println("heap is full");
            return;
        }
        currentSize++;
        int idx = currentSize;
        mH[idx] = x;
        bubbleUp(idx);
    }

    public void bubbleUp(int pos) {
        int parentIdx = pos/2;
        int currentIdx = pos;
        while (currentIdx > 0 && mH[parentIdx] < mH[currentIdx]) {

            swap(currentIdx,parentIdx);
            currentIdx = parentIdx;
            parentIdx = parentIdx/2;
        }
    }

    public int extractMax() {
        int max = mH[1];
        mH[1] = mH[currentSize];
        mH[currentSize] = 0;
        sinkDown(1);
        currentSize--;
        return max;
    }

    public void sinkDown(int k) {
        int greatest = k;
        int leftChildIdx = 2 * k;
        int rightChildIdx = 2 * k+1;
        if (leftChildIdx < heapSize() && mH[greatest] < mH[leftChildIdx]) {
            greatest = leftChildIdx;
        }
        if (rightChildIdx < heapSize() && mH[greatest] < mH[rightChildIdx]) {
            greatest = rightChildIdx;
        }
        if (greatest != k) {

            swap(k, greatest);
            sinkDown(greatest);
        }
    }

    public void swap(int a, int b) {
        int temp = mH[a];
        mH[a] = mH[b];
        mH[b] = temp;
    }
    public boolean isEmpty() {
        return currentSize == 0;
    }

    public int heapSize(){
        return currentSize;
    }

    public static void main(String args[]){
        int arrA [] = {3,2,1,7,8,4,10,16,12};
        System.out.print("Original Array : ");
        for(int i=0;i<arrA.length;i++){
            System.out.print("  " + arrA[i]);
        }
        maxHeap m = new maxHeap(arrA.length);
        System.out.print("\nMax-Heap : ");
        m.createHeap(arrA);
        m.display();
        System.out.print("Extract Max :");
        for(int i=0;i<arrA.length;i++){
            System.out.print("  " + m.extractMax());
        }
    }
}

Output

Original Array :   3  2  1  7  8  4  10  16  12
Max-Heap :  12 10 7 8 2 1 4 0 3
Extract Max :  12  10  8  7  4  3  2  1  0

Applications

The heap data structure has many applications:

  • Heapsort: One of the best sorting methods being in-place and with no quadratic worst-case scenarios.
  • Selection algorithms: A heap allows access to the min or max element in constant time, and other selections (such as median or kth-element) can be done in sub-linear time on data that is in a heap.
  • Graph algorithms: By using heaps as internal traversal data structures, run time will be reduced by polynomial order. Examples of such problems are Prim's minimal-spanning-tree algorithm and Dijkstra's shortest-path algorithm.
  • Priority Queue: A priority queue is an abstract concept like "a list" or "a map"; just as a list can be implemented with a linked list or an array, a priority queue can be implemented with a heap or a variety of other methods.
  • K-way merge: A heap data structure is useful to merge many already-sorted input streams into a single sorted output stream. Examples of the need for merging include external sorting and streaming results from distributed data such as a log structured merge tree. The inner loop is obtaining the min element, replacing with the next element for the corresponding input stream, then doing a sift-down heap operation. (Alternatively the replace function.) (Using extract-max and insert functions of a priority queue are much less efficient.)
  • Order statistics: The Heap data structure can be used to efficiently find the kth smallest (or largest) element in an array.
Max Heap and Min Heap
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