Armyx's blog

TreeSet much faster than PriorityQueue — Dijkstra
By Armyx, history, 9 years ago, In English

I solved this problem http://codeforces.net/contest/449/problem/B using dijkstra based on priority queue and I got TLE (http://codeforces.net/contest/449/submission/13186398) on test 45. After that I changed it to TreeSet ( http://codeforces.net/contest/449/submission/13186483 ) and it runs ~940ms instead of > 2000ms . What is wrong with my previous solution ? I read that priority queue runs faster in practice and I saw that most java solutions use priority queue

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9 years ago, # |
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Priority queue doesn't work in Dijkstra when you store only indices in it, try to think why.

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    9 years ago, # ^ |
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    Priority queue doesn't work in Dijkstra when you store only indices in it

    it does: 13187441

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      9 years ago, # ^ |
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      When the distance to some vertex is changed, this vertex doesn't change its position in the priority queue, while it should to maintain the heap property value(parent) <= value(child). So it's just weak tests.

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        9 years ago, # ^ |
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        CountZero has defined a custom comparison for the PriorityQueue and ignores vertices already visited so it is fundamentally correct.

        EDIT: Have a look at the analysis

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          9 years ago, # ^ |
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          lol, no. Now I see dalex is right. Take a closer look at my code — there are no guarantees for heap property to be maintained. Anyway, we can implement Dijkstra algorithm using priority queue and custom comparator — we need a custom priority queue with method "delete any element".

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            9 years ago, # ^ |
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            Understood my mistake. Please ignore.

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              9 years ago, # ^ |
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              Of course it's correct, they store pairs (vertex, distance).

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                9 years ago, # ^ |
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                Thanks, I understand now.

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            9 years ago, # ^ |
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            BTW, you don't need 'delete any element' in priority-queue.

            You can store a pair <vertex,distance(vertex)> in the priority-queue.

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