In
computer science, a pile is an
abstract data type for storing data in a loosely ordered way. There are two different usages of the term; one refers to an ordered
double-ended queue, the other to an improved
heap
Heap or HEAP may refer to:
Computing and mathematics
* Heap (data structure), a data structure commonly used to implement a priority queue
* Heap (mathematics), a generalization of a group
* Heap (programming) (or free store), an area of memory f ...
.
Ordered double-ended queue
The first version combines the properties of the double-ended queue (deque) and a
priority queue
In computer science, a priority queue is an abstract data-type similar to a regular queue or stack data structure in which each element additionally has a ''priority'' associated with it. In a priority queue, an element with high priority is se ...
and may be described as an ordered deque.
An item may be added to the head of the list if the new item is valued less than or equal to the current head or to the tail of the list if the new item is greater than or equal to the current tail. Elements may be removed from both the head and the tail.
Piles of this kind are used in the "UnShuffle sort"
sorting algorithm.
Improved heap
The second version is a subject of patents
"Data structure and method for pipeline heap-sorting"
U.S. patent 09727534 (2000, issued 2006) and improves the heap data structure.
The whole data pile based system can be generalized as shown:
References
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Abstract data types