DDJ Cover from October, 2002, here for decorative purposes only. Dr. Dobb's Journal
January, 1996

This page contains my original text and figures for the article that appeared in the January 1996 DDJ. Please download the new source code if you want to work with Visual C++ 6.0.


When I wrote the chapter on Huffman coding for my Data Compression book, my sample programs emphasized clarity at the expense of efficiency. I felt it was much more important for my code to be easy to understand than it was to be fast or tight.

Were I writing that book today, I wouldn’t have to wrestle with this choice. The addition of the Standard Template Library to the ANSI/ISO C++ standard provided me with a tool that is perfect for the creation of Huffman coding trees: the priority_queue container adaptor. The STL lets me have the best of both worlds. I can write easy to read code that runs with optimal efficiency.

This article will first show you just what a priority queue is. Next, you will see how the STL implements a priority queue using its heap algorithms. Finally, I’ll show you some sample code that implements a Huffman encoder using the STL priority queue.

What is a priority queue?

When you read your first book on data structures, you undoubtedly ran into a container type known as a queue. Another name for the queue, FIFO, describes the container by the way it works: First In, First Out. Figure 1 shows a representation of the way a queue normally processes data.

A conceptual picture of a FIFO queue, showing an array with objects being pushed into the FIFO on the left, and objects being popped from the FIFO on the right.
Figure 1 — A FIFO Queue

The standard interface to the FIFO queue simply consists of a push() function, which adds new elements, and a pop() function, which always removes the oldest element.

This data structure is relatively easy to implement. However, there are many times when a more sophisticated form of queue is needed. The one this article is concerned with is the priority queue.

The conceptual diagram of a priority queue has the same structure as the FIFO, but each entry has a priority. The items are ordered by priority, meaning that the pop() operation will always get the highest priority item
Figure 2 — A Priority Queue

Figure 2 shows a representation of a priority queue. This type of queue assigns a priority to every element that it stores. New elements are added to the queue using the push() function, just as with a FIFO queue. This queue also has a pop() function, which differs from the FIFO pop() in one key area. When you call pop() for the priority queue, you don’t get the oldest element in the queue. Instead, you get the element with the highest priority.

The priority queue obviously fits in well with certain types of tasks. For example, the scheduler in an operating system might use a priority queue to track processes running in the operating system. In this article, I’ll use a priority queue to build a Huffman encoding tree.

Implementation with a heap

There are a few brute force ways to implement a priority queue. In my inefficient Huffman encoder, I kept the elements in the queue in an unsorted list, then searched the entire list for the highest priority item when it came time to pop(). As an alternative, you could perform a sorted insertion when the push() function is called, so that pop() has an easy job of it. This could be accomplished using some sort of sorted tree.

In the case of the priority queue, there is an approach that is superior to either of these methods. A data structure known as a heap can be used to keep the queue elements in a partially-sorted order. Insertions and extractions can then be done in log(N) time, with virtually no extra memory overhead.

A heap has the following key characteristics:

  • The elements of a heap are stored in a contiguous array. If the heap holds N elements, they will be stored at locations 1 through N of the array. (Please note that this convention of arrays starting at 1 and running through N is used in this article, mostly for notational convenience.)
  • The elements in the array are also part of an implicit binary tree. Every element X (except the root node) has a parent at location X/2.
  • Each node has a priority that is greater then or equal to both of its children.

Figure 3 shows what a typical heap might look like. The important thing to note about a heap is that is not a completely ordered tree. Even though parent nodes are always greater than children, there is no ordering among siblings. Notice for example that node 10 has a higher priority (39), than node 3, which is two levels higher up in the tree.

This diagram shows a sample heap, which is a binary tree with a structure ordered by value.
Figure 3 — A Heap

Even though a heap is not completely sorted, it has one very useful characteristic: the node with the highest priority will always be at the top of the tree. This makes it suitable for a priority queue, since the pop() operation only requires the highest element. Combining this characteristic with the negligible overhead and fast insertions and removals makes the heap an ideal data structure for implementation of a priority queue.

The STL heap functions

The STL has four template functions that work with heaps:

make_heap() Takes an existing sequence of elements and rearranges it to form a heap.
push_heap() Adds a new element to an existing heap.
pop_heap() Removes the highest priority value from a heap.
sort_heap() Takes a heap and turns it into a sorted sequence.

All four of these template functions are parameterized by two different types: class RandomAccessIterator and class Compare. The iterator class simply defines the iterator type used to point to the elements in the heap. The iterator type will usually be a type defined by the container the heap is stored in. If the heap is stored in a built-in C/C++ array, the iterator will be a standard pointer type.

The Compare class is used to define an STL comparison object that is used to order the elements in the heap. The STL gives us maximum flexibility when it comes to determining how heap elements are compared. The comparison class defaults to less<T>, which is a predefined STL comparison object class. less<T> simply compares two objects using the less than relational operator, operator<().

The STL uses only three of these heap functions to implement a priority queue. make_heap() is used to create a heap out of unordered data. push_heap() and pop_heap() are used to insert and remove individual items from the heap. I’m only going to look at push_heap() and pop_heap() in this article. make_heap() uses techniques very similar to those of push_heap() to create an initial heap, so understanding the way the latter works should make the former easy to follow.

template<class RandomAccessIterator, class Compare>
push_heap( RandomAccessIterator first,
           RandomAccessIterator last,
           Compare compare)

The first two arguments to this function are iterators that define the start and end of the sequence of elements that make up the heap. (In canonical STL fashion, first points to the first element in the sequence, and last points one past the last element.) The third parameter is the optional comparison object that is used to order the elements in the heap.

push_heap() isn’t organized the way you might expect. The algorithms supplied with the STL in general work on sequences of elements, and don’t perform any operations that require knowledge of how to add or remove elements from containers. (This is one reason why so many of the algorithms work with built-in arrays.)

Given this restriction, push_heap() operates a little differently than you might expect. If you have an existing heap with N elements number 1 through N, push_heap() requires you to place a new element at location N+1 before calling push_heap(). This has the effect of creating a heap that has a new element in the last position.

You call push_heap() with the heap in this configuration. All push_heap() has to do at that point is correct the heap to take into account this new element. This is done by repeatedly swapping the new node with its parent node until it reaches a position where its parent is greater than it. The procedure for doing this can be described with code something like this:

template <class T>
void adjust_heap( T* c, int N )
{
  int test_node = N;
  while ( test_node > 1 ) {
    int parent_node = N/2;
    if ( c[parent_node] < c[test_node] ) {
      swap( c[parent_node], c[test_node] );
      test_node = parent_node;
    } else
      break;
  }
}
A diagram showing a heap before and after the adjustment made after a node was inserted. The node is inserted at the end of the heap, then swapped up the tree until the heap property is satisfied.
Figure 4 — Inserting a new node

Figure 4 graphically illustrates how this procedure works. The new node, with a value of 55, is added to the heap at the next available position. push_heap() is called, which then begins moving the node up the heap. The initial parent of the new node has a value of 49, which is less than 55. The two elements are swapped, and the comparison loop repeats.

After the first swap, the new node is in a valid position in the heap. It is greater than all of its children, and less than all of its parents. This means it is in the correct spot.

If the new node had a value greater than 60, a second swap would have been performed, and the new node would then appear at the root of the heap.

Note also that every time I talk about a comparison being performed, I refer to it as testing for greater than or less than. This doesn’t mean the comparison has to be performed with operator<(). It could just as easily be done with the comparison object passed as an optional parameter to push_heap().

template<class RandomAccessIterator, class Compare>
pop_heap( RandomAccessIterator first,
          RandomAccessIterator last,
          Compare compare)

pop_heap() requires that you work using a set of idiosyncratic conventions similar to those for push_heap(). pop_heap() doesn’t want to have to worry about changing the size of your container. What it does instead is to move the current root node of the heap to position N. pop_heap() then adjusts the heap to be correct for positions 1 through N-1, and control passes back to the calling function.

This means that after you call pop_heap(), you should expect a couple of things. First, the size of the heap is now N-1 instead of N. However, there is still a single element in the last position of your array. (This can be removed from STL containers using the container’s pop_back() function.) Second, if the heap still contains any data, the highest value is now contained in the root node of the heap.

The actual mechanics of this operation are similar to those for pop_heap(). First, the root node is swapped with the least node in the heap. Then, the new root node is moved down the tree, swapping the greater of its two children, until it is greater than both of its children. You might write code like this to implement this function:

template<class T>
adjust_heap( T* c, int N )
{
    T temp = c[1];
    c[1] = c[N];
    int test_node = 1;
    for ( ; ; ) {
        int child;
        if ( ( test_node * 2 ) >=N )
            break;
        if ( ( test_node * 2 + 1) >= N )
            child = test_node * 2;
        else if ( c[ test_node * 2 ] > c[ test_node * 2 + 1 ] )
            child = test_node * 2;
        else
            child = test_node * 2 + 1;
        if ( c[ test_node ] < c[ child ] ) {
            swap( c[ test_node ], c[ child ] );
            test_node = child;
        } else
            break;
    }
    c[ N ] = temp;
}

This code is slightly more complicated than that of push_heap(), but you can clearly see that it is performing the reverse operation of push_heap(). It moves the least element to the root of the heap, then loops while checking to see if the root node is less than one of its children. If it is, the node is swapped with its largest child, and the process repeats.

Looking at both of these functions, you can see why inserting and removing items from the heap is a lg(N) operation. Regardless of what sort of number is inserted or extracted, the adjustment process will only have to go from the root of the tree to its lowest level, or vice versa. Because of the way the tree is designed for the heap, this will never take more than lg(N) swaps operations.

The priority_queue container adaptor

The STL implements priority queues using something called a container adaptor. A container adaptor is a simple wrapper class. It uses the framework of an existing container to implement a new container type. The STL has three container adaptor types: stack, queue, and priority_queue. The priority_queue class uses an underlying container which can either be an STL vector or deque. In most cases, a vector object is probably the best choice.

When you create a priority_queue, you have to specify the container type, and optionally a comparison object type. Typical declarations look like this:

priority_queue< vector<node> > x;

priority_queue< deque<string>,case_insensitive_compare > y;

priority_queue< vector<int>,greater<int> > z;

The priority_queue adaptor presents you with a very limited interface. It has a pair of constructors, one which creates an empty queue, and one which loads a sequence of initial values into the queue. The copy constructor, assignment operator, and destructor are all implicitly defined by the compiler. The constructors and destructors take care of initializing two protected data members: Container c and the comparison object, Compare comp.

In addition, the container offers up just five member functions. (Six, if you count the const and mutable versions of top() as two separate functions.) Like the priority_queue class itself, these member functions amount to nothing more than wrappers around container member functions. The Hewlett Packard STL release defines these functions as shown below:

template <class Container, class Compare>

class  priority_queue {
  protected :
    Container c;
    Compare comp;
    ...
  public :
    bool empty() const { return c.empty(); }
    size_type size() const { return c.size(); }
    value_type& top() { return c.front(); }
    const value_type& top() const { return c.front(); }
    void push(const value_type& x) {
        c.push_back(x);
        push_heap(c.begin(), c.end(), comp);
    }
    void pop() {
        pop_heap(c.begin(), c.end(), comp);
        c.pop_back();
    }

These member functions are all nearly self-explanatory. empty() and size() are used to determine the number of elements in the heap at a give time. top() returns a reference to the top element in the heap, which should be the element with the highest priority. push() and pop() are used to insert and remove elements from the queue.

Note that push() and pop() both deal with the idiosyncratic behavior of the STL heap functions. push() first adds the new element to the end of the container that holds the heap. It then calls the STL push_heap() function to walk the new element up to its proper place. pop() first calls the STL pop_heap() function to move the top element to the end of the container. A subsequent call to pop_back() removes that element and shrinks the container.

As a programmer, I feel the most exciting thing about this container adaptor is the relative ease with which it was built around an existing container class. It would take hundreds of lines of code to create a new container class from scratch. But this example shows that you can hijack existing container capabilities to define new types without even breaking a sweat.

An example: Huffman coding

At the start of this article, I mentioned that priority queue containers would be ideal for developing Huffman coding trees. A Huffman coding tree is a binary tree made up of internal nodes and leaf nodes. Coding starts at the root, and moves down the tree, issuing 0s and 1s until a leaf node is reached. Leaf nodes signify that a character has been completely encoded, while internal nodes are a stop along the way. Each node has two children, one designated with a 0 bit, and one designated with a 1 bit. To encode a particular character, you take the path down the tree that leads to to the target leaf.

Building the Hufman encoding tree is done by first creating a list of unattached leaf nodes, each having an internal weight proportional to the frequency of the character they are encoding. The encoding process then executes a simple loop that combines nodes until there is only one root node. That root node is then the starting point for the Huffman encoder.

Each pass through the loop you have to identify the two available nodes with the lowest weights. Those two nodes are then removed from the pool of available nodes (the priority queue.) A new internal node is then created, and it is assigned those two nodes as children. This internal node is then entered into the priority queue.

A Huffman encoding tree, in which each node has a weight.
Figure 5 — A Huffman encoding tree with the node weight circled

Figure 5 shows the tree that results from processing the following input data:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA
BBB
C
D
E
F
GGG
HHHH

This data is found in INPUT.DAT, the file used to exercise the test program, PQHUFF.CPP. As you can see, the nodes with the lowest frequency counts are found the farthest down the tree, meaning they will take more bits to encode. High frequency characters, such as the ‘A’, will take fewer bits to encode. The result? Data compression.

The test program PQHUFF.CPP is shown in Listing 1. PQHUFF.CPP builds the Huffman encoding tree using a priority queue filled with objects of class node. The node objects are simply C++ representations of the nodes shown in Figure 5 above. Each node has a weight, which determines its place in the eventual Huffman coding tree.

The utility of the priority queue finally shows up in main() of PQHUFF.CPP. After counting all the characters in the input file, and adding the initial count values to priority queue, the loop that builds the encoding tree is deceptively simple:

while ( q.size() > 1 ) {
    node *child0 = new node( q.top() );
    q.pop();
    node *child1 = new node( q.top() );
    q.pop();
    q.push( node( child0, child1 ) );
}

In the loop, the two lowest weight nodes are popped from the priority queue. A new node that has those two nodes for children is then created, and inserted into the queue. The process continues until there is just one node left in the queue, which is then the root node for the encoding tree.

The output from PQHUFF.EXE for the data shown above is:

Char  Symbol   Code
 A      14     0
 B       3     100
 G       3     101
 H       4     110
 C       1     11100
 F       1     11101
 D       1     11110
 E       1     11111

Conclusion

The STL template class priority_queue provides an efficient encapsulation of a priority queue. The details of both heap management and container support are provided in a fairly transparent manner.

Having this class available as part of the C++ standard library gives programmers a potent new tool to bring to bear for a variety of problems. I find that it makes my Huffman table creation much more efficient, while maintaining the readability I like.

//
// PQHUFF.CPP
//
// This program reads in all the characters from
// the file input.dat, then builds a Huffman
// encoding tree using an STL priority queue.  The
// resulting table is then printed out.
//
// If you have the HP version of the STL installed,
// you can build this program with Borland C++ 4.5
// using a command line like this:
//
//  bcc -ml -IC:\STL pqhuff.cpp
//
//
// Borland 4.x workarounds
//

#define __MINMAX_DEFINED
#pragma option -vi-

#include <iostream.h>
#include <iomanip.h>
#include <fstream.h>
#include <vector.h>
#include <stack.h>
#include <cstring.h>

//
// The node class is used to represent both leaf
// and internal nodes. leaf nodes have 0s in the
// child pointers, and their value member corresponds
// to the character they encode.  internal nodes
// don't have anything meaningful in their value
// member, but their child pointers point to
// other nodes.
//

struct node {
    int weight;
    unsigned char value;
    const node *child0;
    const node *child1;
//
// Construct a new leaf node for character c
//
    node( unsigned char c = 0, int i = -1 ) {
        value = c;
        weight = i;
        child0 = 0;
        child1 = 0;
    }
//
// Construct a new internal node that has
// children c1 and c2.
//
    node( const node* c0, const node *c1 ) {
        value = 0;
        weight = c0->weight + c1->weight;
        child0 = c0;
        child1 = c1;
    }
//
// The comparison operator used to order the
// priority queue.
//
    bool operator<( const node &a ) const {
        return weight < a.weight;
    }
    void traverse( string code = "" )  const;
};

//
// The traverse member function is used to
// print out the code for a given node.  It
// is designed to print the entire tree if
// called for the root node.
//

void node::traverse( string code ) const
{
    if ( child0 ) {
        child0->traverse( code + '0' );
        child1->traverse( code + '1' );
    } else {
        cout << " " << value << "      ";
        cout << setw( 2 ) << weight;
        cout << "     " << code << endl;
    }
}

//
// This routine does a quick count of all the
// characters in the input file.  I skip the
// whitespace.
//

void count_chars( int *counts )
{
    for ( int i = 0 ; i < 256 ; i++ )
        counts[ i ] = 0;
    ifstream file( "input.dat" );
    if ( !file ) {
        cerr << "Couldn't open the input file!\n";
        throw "abort";
    }
    file.setf( ios::skipws );
    for ( ; ; ) {
        unsigned char c;
        file >> c;
        if ( file )
            counts[ c ]++;
        else
            break;
   }
}

main()
{
    int counts[ 256 ];

    count_chars( counts );
    priority_queue< vector< node >, greater<node> > q;
//
// First I push all the leaf nodes into the queue
//
    for ( int i = 0 ; i < 256 ; i++ )
        if ( counts[ i ] )
            q.push( node( i, counts[ i ] ) );
//
// This loop removes the two smallest nodes from the
// queue.  It creates a new internal node that has
// those two nodes as children. The new internal node
// is then inserted into the priority queue.  When there
// is only one node in the priority queue, the tree
// is complete.
//

    while ( q.size() < 1 ) {
        node *child0 = new node( q.top() );
        q.pop();
        node *child1 = new node( q.top() );
        q.pop();
        q.push( node( child0, child1 ) );
    }
//
// Now I dump the results
//
    cout << "Char  Symbol   Code" << endl;
    q.top().traverse();
    return 1;
}
Listing 1 — PQHUFF.CPP

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA
BBB
C
D
E
F
GGG
HHHH
Listing 2 — INPUT.DAT