In short
A tree-based structure that keeps the minimum (or maximum) element quickly accessible — the engine behind priority queues, used for 'top K' and scheduling problems.
How to learn this
- 1Solve a 'find the K largest/smallest elements' problem using a heap.
- 2Learn the difference between a min-heap and a max-heap.
- 3Recognize heap-shaped problems: anything about 'top K', 'kth largest', or merging sorted data.
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