Sequence of operations analysis for dynamic data structures

Abstract

This paper introduces a rather general technique for computing the average-case performance of dynamic data structures, subjected to arbitrary sequences of insert, delete, and search operations. The method allows us effectively to evaluate the integrated cost of various interesting data structure implementations, for stacks, dictionaries, symbol tables, priority queues, and linear lists; it can thus be used as a basis for measuring the efficiency of each proposed implementation. For each data type, a specific continued fraction and a family of orthogonal polynomials are associated with sequences of operations: Tchebycheff for stacks, Laguerre for dictionaries, Charlier for symbol tables, Hermite for priority queues, and Meixner for linear lists. Our main result is an explicit expression, for each of the above data types, of the generating function for integrated costs, as a linear integral transform of the generating functions for individual operation costs. We use the result to compute explicitly integrated costs of various implementations of dictionaries and priority queues.