JavaAlgorithms/data_structures/heaps/Heap.java
2016-12-13 16:09:28 +01:00

42 lines
1.5 KiB
Java

package heaps;
/**
* Interface common to heap data structures.<br>
* <p>Heaps are tree-like data structures that allow storing elements in a specific
* way. Each node corresponds to an element and has one parent node (except for the root) and
* at most two children nodes. Every element contains a key, and those keys
* indicate how the tree shall be built. For instance, for a min-heap, the key of a node shall
* be greater than or equal to its parent's and lower than or equal to its children's (the opposite rule applies to a
* max-heap).</p>
* <p>All heap-related operations (inserting or deleting an element, extracting the min or max) are performed in
* O(log n) time.</p>
* @author Nicolas Renard
*
*
*/
public interface Heap {
/**
*
* @return the top element in the heap, the one with lowest key for min-heap or with
* the highest key for max-heap
* @throws Exception if heap is empty
*/
public abstract HeapElement getElement() throws EmptyHeapException;
/**
* Inserts an element in the heap. Adds it to then end and toggle it until it finds its
* right position.
*
* @param element an instance of the HeapElement class.
*/
public abstract void insertElement(HeapElement element);
/**
* Delete an element in the heap.
*
* @param elementIndex int containing the position in the heap of the element to be deleted.
*/
public abstract void deleteElement(int elementIndex);
}