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(Solved): How to solve this task? implementation of binary heap is based on an array, rather than a linked ...
How to solve this task?
implementation of binary heap is based on an array, rather than a linked structure of nodes. Why isn't such an array-based structure used for ordered search tree as well? The implementation would use more than linear space because a search tree is not necessarily complete. Search trees also need to maintain the size of each node's subtrees, which cannot be stored in an array. Search trees can be much larger than heaps, so external memory considerations become more important. Ordered search trees must support the floor operation, which takes too much time in an array.
Expert Answer
Let's understand each option and find out which is the correct one.Option a) The implementation would use more than linear space because a search tree is not necessarily complete. Binary heaps have a complete binary tree property, which allows efficient implementation using an array. In a complete binary tree, all levels are completely filled except possibly for the last level, which is filled from left to right. This property allows to store the elements of the heap compactly in an array.However, search trees like binary search trees do not have this completeness property. The structure of a search tree can vary depending on the order of insertions and deletions, and it may become unbalanced. To maintain the search tree property, additional nodes and pointers are required. If an array-based structure is to be used for search trees, extra space will be needed to handle these potential imbalances, resulting in higher space complexity.