https://github.com/kiplingw/skiplist
Kip's implementation of William Pugh's (1989) probabilistic linked list with logarithmic access time.
https://github.com/kiplingw/skiplist
algorithm balanced-tree data-structures linked-list logarithmic-complexity probabilistic-data-structures
Last synced: 10 months ago
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Kip's implementation of William Pugh's (1989) probabilistic linked list with logarithmic access time.
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/kiplingw/skiplist
- Owner: kiplingw
- License: gpl-3.0
- Created: 2025-02-16T01:40:44.000Z (10 months ago)
- Default Branch: main
- Last Pushed: 2025-02-16T02:11:54.000Z (10 months ago)
- Last Synced: 2025-02-16T02:27:19.121Z (10 months ago)
- Topics: algorithm, balanced-tree, data-structures, linked-list, logarithmic-complexity, probabilistic-data-structures
- Language: C++
- Homepage: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/78973.78977
- Size: 0 Bytes
- Stars: 0
- Watchers: 1
- Forks: 0
- Open Issues: 0
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: ReadMe.md
- License: LICENSE
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README
# Kip's Skip List Implementation
This is my C++17 header-only implementation of the skip list data structure.
The skip list was first discovered by William Pugh (1989). It can be used in place of balanced trees. It uses probabilistic balancing. It works well if the elements are inserted in random order, or, unlike a binary tree, in sorted order too. It has the same asymptotic expected time bounds as a binary tree, but is simpler to implement, faster (in theory), and uses less storage.
Experimentation demonstrates that performance is not quite as Pugh had hoped, or at least not on modern computing hardware. But then when he wrote his seminal paper the size of the data structure likely would not have contained billions of elements and modern CPU caches also didn't exist either.
You can read the Pugh's original paper [here](https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/78973.78977).
## Compiling / Running
There is no build environment, or even a vanilla makefile. However, a simple unit test is available. To compile and run it, execute the following:
```bash
$ g++ Test.cpp -o Test -Wall -Werror -O3 -g3 && ./Test
```