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psq.clj

Persistent Priority Search Queues in Clojure, based on Ralf Hinze's priority search pennants (see R. Hinze, A Simple Implementation Technique for Priority Search Queues).

Priority Search Queues are sorted maps that recognize an independent ordering on their entries' values – in this context known as priorities – in addition to the ordering on keys.

They support the full Clojure sorted map API, with (r)(sub)seq respecting key order, as well as priority-based peek and pop, priority-order traversals and highly efficient (r)(sub)seq-like key order traversals with an additional < or <= constraint on the priorities of the returned entries.

In addition to the functionality presented in the paper, this implementation supports nearest (look up the value at the key closest to and less/greater than the given key, inclusive or exclusive), nth (in key order), rank (look up a key's index in key order), split (sub-PSQs less/greater than the given key, plus the entry at the key if present) and subrange (sub-PSQs bounded by the given keys), all in logarithmic time.

In other words, the abstract data type on offer is a superset of that supported by data.avl, with the additional operations exposing the priority queue aspect of PSQs or blending the sorted map and priority queue aspects.

Maturity

Experimental:

The public features are expected to work with the versions of Clojure listed in project.clj and a thorough generative test suite using test.check and collection-check is in place, however both the public API and the implementation strategy may be revised.

Usage

psq.clj priority search queues are, at a high level, sorted maps that support certain additional operations. Their printed representation is like that of regular sorted maps.

All the operations listed above are performed in logarithmic time, with the exception of peek (constant time, extremely fast) and priority-bounded traversals (O(r(log n - log r) + r), where r is the number of entries actually returned). These exceptions are also noted below.

The public namespace

There is a single public namespace called psq.clj:

(require '[psq.clj :as psq])

Factory functions

psq.clj exposes six factory functions. Three of these use Clojure's default comparator (the one backing clojure.core/sorted-map, equivalent to clojure.core/compare):

;; The psq.clj counterpart to clojure.core/sorted-map:
(psq/psqueue key priority …)
;= {key priority …}

;; A version of the above that takes keys + priorities in a seqable:
(psq/psqueue* [key priority …])

;; A factory that accepts a map or a seqable of map entries:
(psq/psq {key priority …})
(psq/psq [[key priority] …])

The other three are versions of the above that take two custom comparators:

  • the first one determines the new PSQ's key order;

  • the second one is used for priorities.

(psq/psqueue-by > > key priority …) ; reverse numeric order on keys
                                    ; and priorities

psq/psqueue-by*, psq/psq-by ; like psq/psqueue*, psq/psq, but with
                            ; custom comparators

Regular sorted map API

All operations supported by Clojure's built-in sorted maps are supported by psq.clj priority search queues: assoc, dissoc, conj, seq, rseq, subseq, rsubseq. Note that (r)(sub)seq follow key order:

(seq (psq/psqueue 0 10 1 9))
;= ([0 10] [1 9])

Nearest neighbour lookups

Find the entry whose key is nearest to the given key and < / <= / >= / > than the given key (nil if no such entry exists, for example if the test is > and the key passed in is >= to the greatest key in the PSQ).

(psq/nearest (psq/psq {0 1 4 5 9 10}) > 3)
;= [4 5]

nth, rank in key order

nth accesses the entry at the given index in the input PSQ's key order:

(nth (psq/psqueue 0 3 6 -3) 0)
;= [0 3]

rank returns the index of the given key in the input PSQ as a primitive long or -1 for not found:

(psq/rank (psq/psqueue 0 3 6 -3) 6)
;= 1

Splits, subranges

The PSQs returned by the following two operations share structure with the input PSQs in the common parts, but they do not hold on to any entries outside the stated range for GC purposes – they are completely independent, first-class PSQs.

split returns a vector of

  1. a fully independent PSQ comprising the entries of the input PSQ to the left of the given key,

  2. the entry at the given key, or nil if not present,

  3. a fully independent PSQ comprising the entries of the input PSQ to the right of the given key.

(psq/split (psq/psqueue* (range 10)) 4)
;= [{0 1 2 3} [4 5] {6 7 8 9}]

subrange is similar to subseq, but rather than returning a seq of entries, it returns a fully independent PSQ comprising the entries of the input PSQ that fall within the given key range:

(psq/subrange (psq/psqueue* (range 10)) >= 4 < 8)
;= {4 5 6 7}

Priority queue API based on values/priorities

psq.clj priority search queues support clojure.core/peek and clojure.core/pop. peek returns an entry with the minimum priority (NB. there can be multiple entries with any given priority).

;; NB. peek is constant-time and extremely fast
(peek (psq/psqueue 0 3 1 -3))
;= [1 -3]

pop removes the entry that peek would return:

(pop (psq/psqueue 0 3 1 -3))
;= {0 3}

Priority-order traversals

PSQs can be traversed in order of non-decreasing priorities:

(psq/priority-seq (psq/psqueue 0 3 1 10 2 4 3 8 5 12 6 0))
;= ([6 0] [0 3] [2 4] [3 8] [1 10] [5 12])

Priority-bounded traversals

psq.clj exposes counterparts to (r)(sub)seq that take an additional initial argument interpreted as an upper bound on the priorities of entries that may be returned.

These operations are performed in time O(r(log n - log r) + r), where r is the number of entries actually returned. In practice, they are much faster than the equivalent combinations of (r)(sub)seq and filter; if the input key range includes a large number of entries only a small number of which satisfies the priority constraint, the advantage over r(sub)(seq) composed with filter can reach several orders of magnitude.

For example, these calls return the entries in the given range (the full PSQ or the > 0 <= 5 range) whose priorities are <= than the given upper bound of 20 in the ordering determined by the PSQs' priority comparator:

(psq/seq<= (psq/psqueue 0 1 2 5 3 1 4 100 5 3 6 10) 20)
;= ([0 1] [2 5] [3 1] [5 3] [6 10])

(psq/subseq<= (psq/psqueue 0 1 2 5 3 1 4 100 5 3 6 10) 20 > 0 <= 5)
;= ([2 5] [3 1] [5 3])

Also available:

  • rseq<=, rsubseq<= – as above, with the output seqs reversed,

  • seq<, rseq<, subseq<, rsubseq< – as above, returning only entries with priorities < than the given bound.

Releases and dependency information

This is an experimental library. Alpha releases are available from Clojars. Follow the link above to discover the current release number.

Leiningen dependency information:

[psq.clj "${version}"]

Maven dependency information:

<dependency>
  <groupId>psq.clj</groupId>
  <artifactId>psq.clj</artifactId>
  <version>${version}</version>
</dependency>

Gradle dependency information:

compile "psq.clj:psq.clj:${version}"

Clojure code reuse

The implementations of the static public IPersistentMap create(…) and static public PersistentPrioritySearchQueue create(…) methods are adapted from the implementations of the analogous methods in Clojure.

The Clojure source files containing the relevant code carry the following copyright notice:

Copyright (c) Rich Hickey. All rights reserved.
The use and distribution terms for this software are covered by the
Eclipse Public License 1.0 (http://opensource.org/licenses/eclipse-1.0.php)
which can be found in the file epl-v10.html at the root of this distribution.
By using this software in any fashion, you are agreeing to be bound by
  the terms of this license.
You must not remove this notice, or any other, from this software.

Licence

Copyright © 2016 Michał Marczyk

Distributed under the Eclipse Public License version 1.0.