Advanced Algorithms and Data Structures

appendix D. Containers as priority queues

One of the largest subsets of data structures, probably the largest (by far), is the set of containers. A container is a collection of objects, with operations for adding, removing, and retrieving them. The difference between each kind of container revolves around

1. The order in which the elements are extracted from the container

2. Whether the elements need to be unique, or multiple instances are allowed

3. Whether the container is associative, that is, if it stores plain elements or associates keys with values

4. How elements can be searched, and what operations can be performed on the stored data

5. Performance

Points 1-4 define an abstraction of a container, in other words, its behavior: in technical ...