Heap pattern

Question 1

What is a min heap? What is a max heap?

Answer 1

It’s a binary tree with two important features
1. complete tree

2. Every node is less than both children

root is the min value

A max heap is the same as the above except the opposite ordering where the root is the max node

Question 2

What are the typical functions for a heap?

Answer 2

top - similar to peak where the current root is returned

push - inserts a new value and after that we still have the two properties preserved.

pop - Removes the min value and after that we still have two properties preserved.