I want to use this function with a large amount of possibility like 700 integer but the function make too much time to execute. Does someone have an idea to increase the performance? Thank you :)
public static Set<Set<Integer>> combinations(List<Integer> groupSize, int k) {
Set<Set<Integer>> allCombos = new HashSet<Set<Integer>> ();
// base cases for recursion
if (k == 0) {
// There is only one combination of size 0, the empty team.
allCombos.add(new HashSet<Integer>());
return allCombos;
}
if (k > groupSize.size()) {
// There can be no teams with size larger than the group size,
// so return allCombos without putting any teams in it.
return allCombos;
}
// Create a copy of the group with one item removed.
List<Integer> groupWithoutX = new ArrayList<Integer> (groupSize);
Integer x = groupWithoutX.remove(groupWithoutX.size() - 1);
Set<Set<Integer>> combosWithoutX = combinations(groupWithoutX, k);
Set<Set<Integer>> combosWithX = combinations(groupWithoutX, k - 1);
for (Set<Integer> combo : combosWithX) {
combo.add(x);
}
allCombos.addAll(combosWithoutX);
allCombos.addAll(combosWithX);
return allCombos;
}
What features of Set are you going to need to use on the returned value?
If you only need some of them - perhaps just iterator() or contains(...) - then you could consider returning an Iterator which calculates the combinations on the fly.
There's an interesting mechanism to generate the nth combination of a lexicographically ordered set here.
Other data structure. You could try a BitSet instead of the Set<Integer>. If the integer values have a wild range (negative, larger gaps), use an index in groupSize.
Using indices instead of integer values has other advantages: all subsets as bits can be done in a for-loop (BigInteger as set).
No data. Or make an iterator (Stream) of all combinations to repeatedly apply to your processing methods.
Concurrency.
Paralellism would would only mean a factor 4/8. ThreadPoolExecutor and Future maybe.
OPTIMIZING THE ALGORITHM ITSELF
The set of sets could better be a List. That tremendously improves adding a set.
And shows whether the algorithm does not erroneously create identical sets.
Related
I'm working on a programming practice site that asked to implement a method that merges two sorted arrays. This is my solution:
public static int[] merge(int[] arrLeft, int[] arrRight){
int[] merged = new int[arrRight.length + arrLeft.length];
Queue<Integer> leftQueue = new LinkedList<>();
Queue<Integer> rightQueue = new LinkedList<>();
for(int i = 0; i < arrLeft.length ; i ++){
leftQueue.add(arrLeft[i]);
}
for(int i = 0; i < arrRight.length; i ++){
rightQueue.add(arrRight[i]);
}
int index = 0;
while (!leftQueue.isEmpty() || !rightQueue.isEmpty()){
int largerLeft = leftQueue.isEmpty() ? Integer.MAX_VALUE : leftQueue.peek();
int largerRight = rightQueue.isEmpty() ? Integer.MAX_VALUE : rightQueue.peek();
if(largerLeft > largerRight){
merged[index] = largerRight;
rightQueue.poll();
} else{
merged[index] = largerLeft;
leftQueue.poll();
}
index ++;
}
return merged;
}
But this is the official solution:
public static int[] merge(int[] arrLeft, int[] arrRight){
// Grab the lengths of the left and right arrays
int lenLeft = arrLeft.length;
int lenRight = arrRight.length;
// Create a new output array with the size = sum of the lengths of left and right
// arrays
int[] arrMerged = new int[lenLeft+lenRight];
// Maintain 3 indices, one for the left array, one for the right and one for
// the merged array
int indLeft = 0, indRight = 0, indMerged = 0;
// While neither array is empty, run a while loop to merge
// the smaller of the two elements, starting at the leftmost position of
// both arrays
while(indLeft < lenLeft && indRight < lenRight){
if(arrLeft[indLeft] < arrRight[indRight])
arrMerged[indMerged++] = arrLeft[indLeft++];
else
arrMerged[indMerged++] = arrRight[indRight++];
}
// Another while loop for when the left array still has elements left
while(indLeft < lenLeft){
arrMerged[indMerged++] = arrLeft[indLeft++];
}
// Another while loop for when the right array still has elements left
while(indRight < lenRight){
arrMerged[indMerged++] = arrRight[indRight++];
}
return arrMerged;
}
Apparently, all the other solutions by users on the site did not make use of a queue as well. I'm wondering if using a Queue is less efficient? Could I be penalized for using a queue in an interview for example?
As the question already states that the left and right input arrays are sorted, this gives you a hint that you should be able to solve the problem without requiring a data structure other than an array for the output.
In a real interview, it is likely that the interviewer will ask you to talk through your thought process while you are coding the solution. They may state that they want the solution implemented with certain constraints. It is very important to make sure that the problem is well defined before you start your coding. Ask as many questions as you can think of to constrain the problem as much as possible before starting.
When you are done implementing your solution, you could mention the time and space complexity of your implementation and suggest an alternative, more efficient solution.
For example, when describing your implementation you could talk about the following:
There is overhead when creating the queues
The big O notation / time and space complexity of your solution
You are unnecessarily iterating over every element of the left and right input array to create the queues before you do any merging
etc...
These types of interview questions are common when applying for positions at companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and some tech startups. To prepare for such questions, I recommend you work through problems in books such as Cracking the Coding Interview. The book covers how to approach such problems, and the interview process for these kinds of companies.
Sorry to say but your solution with queues is horrible.
You are copying all elements to auxiliary dynamic data structures (which can be highly costly because of memory allocations), then back to the destination array.
A big "disadvantage" of merging is that it requires twice the storage space as it cannot be done in-place (or at least no the straightforward way). But you are spoiling things to a much larger extent by adding extra copies and overhead, unnecessarily.
The true solution is to copy directly from source to destination, leading to simpler and much more efficient code.
Also note that using a sentinel value (Integer.MAX_VALUE) when one of the queues is exhausted is a false good idea because it adds extra comparisons when you know the outcome in advance. It is much better to split in three loops as in the reference code.
Lastly, your solution can fail when the data happens to contain Integer.MAX_VALUE.
There is a storage unit, with has a capacity for N items. Initially this unit is empty.
The space is arranged in a linear manner, i.e. one beside the other in a line.
Each storage space has a number, increasing till N.
When someone drops their package, it is assigned the first available space. The packages could also be picked up, in this case the space becomes vacant.
Example: If the total capacity was 4. and 1 and 2 are full the third person to come in will be assigned the space 3. If 1, 2 and 3 were full and the 2nd space becomes vacant, the next person to come will be assigned the space 2.
The packages they drop have 2 unique properties, assigned for immediate identification. First they are color coded based on their content and second they are assigned a unique identification number(UIN).
What we want is to query the system:
When the input is color, show all the UIN associated with this color.
When the input is color, show all the numbers where these packages are placed(storage space number).
Show where an item with a given UIN is placed, i.e. storage space number.
I would like to know how which Data Structures to use for this case, so that the system works as efficiently as possible?
And I am not given which of these operations os most frequent, which means I will have to optimise for all the cases.
Please take a note, even though the query process is not directly asking for storage space number, but when an item is removed from the store it is removed by querying from the storage space number.
You have mentioned three queries that you want to make. Let's handle them one by one.
I cannot think of a single Data Structure that can help you with all three queries at the same time. So I'm going to give an answer that has three Data Structures and you will have to maintain all the three DS's state to keep the application running properly. Consider that as the cost of getting a respectably fast performance from your application for the desired functionality.
When the input is color, show all the UIN associated with this color.
Use a HashMap that maps Color to a Set of UIN. Whenever an item:
is added - See if the color is present in the HashMap. If yes, add this UIN to the set else create a new entry with a new set and add the UIN then.
is removed - Find the set for this color and remove this UIN from the set. If the set is now empty, you may remove this entry altogether.
When the input is color, show all the numbers where these packages are placed.
Maintain a HashMap that maps UIN to the number where an incoming package is placed. From the HashMap that we created in the previous case, you can get the list of all UINs associated with the given Color. Then using this HashMap you can get the number for each UIN which is present in the set for that Color.
So now, when a package is to be added, you will have to add the entry to previous HashMap in the specific Color bucket and to this HashMap as well. On removing, you will have to .Remove() the entry from here.
Finally,
Show where an item with a given UIN is placed.
If you have done the previous, you already have the HashMap mapping UINs to numbers. This problem is only a sub-problem of the previous one.
The third DS, as I mentioned at the top, will be a Min-Heap of ints. The heap will be initialized with the first N integers at the start. Then, as the packages will come, the heap will be polled. The number returned will represent the storage space where this package is to be put. If the storage unit is full, the heap will be empty. Whenever a package will be removed, its number will be added back to the heap. Since it is a min-heap, the minimum number will bubble up to the top, satisfying your case that when 4 and 2 are empty, the next space to be filled will be 4.
Let's do a Big O analysis of this solution for completion.
Time for initialization: of this setup will be O(N) because we will have to initialize a heap of N. The other two HashMaps will be empty to begin with and therefore will incur no time cost.
Time for adding a package: will include time to get a number and then make appropriate entries in the HashMaps. To get a number from heap will take O(Log N) time at max. Addition of entries in HashMaps will be O(1). Hence a worst case overall time of O(Log N).
Time for removing a package: will also be O(Log N) at worst because the time to remove from the HashMaps will be O(1) only while, the time to add the freed number back to min-heap will be upper bounded by O(Log N).
This smells of homework or really bad management.
Either way, I have decided to do a version of this where you care most about query speed but don't care about memory or a little extra overhead to inserts and deletes. That's not to say that I think that I'm going to be burning memory like crazy or taking forever to insert and delete, just that I'm focusing most on queries.
Tl;DR - to solve your problem, I use a PriorityQueue, an Array, a HashMap, and an ArrayListMultimap (from guava, a common external library), each one to solve a different problem.
The following section is working code that walks through a few simple inserts, queries, and deletes. This next bit isn't actually Java, since I chopped out most of the imports, class declaration, etc. Also, it references another class called 'Packg'. That's just a simple data structure which you should be able to figure out just from the calls made to it.
Explanation is below the code
import com.google.common.collect.ArrayListMultimap;
private PriorityQueue<Integer> openSlots;
private Packg[] currentPackages;
Map<Long, Packg> currentPackageMap;
private ArrayListMultimap<String, Packg> currentColorMap;
private Object $outsideCall;
public CrazyDataStructure(int howManyPackagesPossible) {
$outsideCall = new Object();
this.currentPackages = new Packg[howManyPackagesPossible];
openSlots = new PriorityQueue<>();
IntStream.range(0, howManyPackagesPossible).forEach(i -> openSlots.add(i));//populate the open slots priority queue
currentPackageMap = new HashMap<>();
currentColorMap = ArrayListMultimap.create();
}
/*
* args[0] = integer, maximum # of packages
*/
public static void main(String[] args)
{
int howManyPackagesPossible = Integer.parseInt(args[0]);
CrazyDataStructure cds = new CrazyDataStructure(howManyPackagesPossible);
cds.addPackage(new Packg(12345, "blue"));
cds.addPackage(new Packg(12346, "yellow"));
cds.addPackage(new Packg(12347, "orange"));
cds.addPackage(new Packg(12348, "blue"));
System.out.println(cds.getSlotsForColor("blue"));//should be a list of {0,3}
System.out.println(cds.getSlotForUIN(12346));//should be 1 (0-indexed, remember)
System.out.println(cds.getSlotsForColor("orange"));//should be a list of {2}
System.out.println(cds.removePackage(2));//should be the orange one
cds.addPackage(new Packg(12349, "green"));
System.out.println(cds.getSlotForUIN(12349));//should be 2, since that's open
}
public int addPackage(Packg packg)
{
synchronized($outsideCall)
{
int result = openSlots.poll();
packg.setSlot(result);
currentPackages[result] = packg;
currentPackageMap.put(packg.getUIN(), packg);
currentColorMap.put(packg.getColor(), packg);
return result;
}
}
public Packg removePackage(int slot)
{
synchronized($outsideCall)
{
if(currentPackages[slot] == null)
return null;
else
{
Packg packg = currentPackages[slot];
currentColorMap.remove(packg.getColor(), packg);
currentPackageMap.remove(packg.getUIN());
currentPackages[slot] = null;
openSlots.add(slot);//return slot to priority queue
return packg;
}
}
}
public List<Packg> getUINsForColor(String color)
{
synchronized($outsideCall)
{
return currentColorMap.get(color);
}
}
public List<Integer> getSlotsForColor(String color)
{
synchronized($outsideCall)
{
return currentColorMap.get(color).stream().map(packg -> packg.getSlot()).collect(Collectors.toList());
}
}
public int getSlotForUIN(long uin)
{
synchronized($outsideCall)
{
if(currentPackageMap.containsKey(uin))
return currentPackageMap.get(uin).getSlot();
else
return -1;
}
}
I use 4 different data structures in my class.
PriorityQueue I use the priority queue to keep track of all the open slots. It's log(n) for inserts and constant for removals, so that shouldn't be too bad. Memory-wise, it's not particularly efficient, but it's also linear, so that won't be too bad.
Array I use a regular Array to track by slot #. This is linear for memory, and constant for insert and delete. If you needed more flexibility in the number of slots you could have, you might have to switch this out for an ArrayList or something, but then you'd have to find a better way to keep track of 'empty' slots.
HashMap ah, the HashMap, the golden child of BigO complexity. In return for some memory overhead and an annoying capital letter 'M', it's an awesome data structure. Insertions are reasonable, and queries are constant. I use it to map between the UIDs and the slot for a Packg.
ArrayListMultimap the only data structure I use that's not plain Java. This one comes from Guava (Google, basically), and it's just a nice little shortcut to writing your own Map of Lists. Also, it plays nicely with nulls, and that's a bonus to me. This one is probably the least efficient of all the data structures, but it's also the one that handles the hardest task, so... can't blame it. this one allows us to grab the list of Packg's by color, in constant time relative to the number of slots and in linear time relative to the number of Packg objects it returns.
When you have this many data structures, it makes inserts and deletes a little cumbersome, but those methods should still be pretty straight-forward. If some parts of the code don't make sense, I'll be happy to explain more (by adding comments in the code), but I think it should be mostly fine as-is.
Query 3: Use a hash map, key is UIN, value is object (storage space number,color) (and any more information of the package). Cost is O(1) to query, insert or delete. Space is O(k), with k is the current number of UINs.
Query 1 and 2 : Use hash map + multiple link lists
Hash map, key is color, value is pointer(or reference in Java) to link list of corresponding UINs for that color.
Each link list contains UINs.
For query 1: ask hash map, then return corresponding link list. Cost is O(k1) where k1 is the number of UINs for query color. Space is O(m+k1), where m is the number of unique color.
For query 2: do query 1, then apply query 3. Cost is O(k1) where k1 is the number of UINs for query color. Space is O(m+k1), where m is the number of unique color.
To Insert: given color, number and UIN, insert in hash map of query 3 an object (num,color); hash(color) to go to corresponding link list and insert UIN.
To Delete: given UIN, ask query 3 for color, then ask query 1 to delete UIN in link list. Then delete UIN in hash map of query 3.
Bonus: To manage to storage space, the situation is the same as memory management in OS: read more
This is very simple to do with SegmentTree.
Just store a position in each place and query min it will match with vacant place, when you capture a place just assign 0 to this place.
Package information possible store in separate array.
Initiall it have following values:
1 2 3 4
After capturing it will looks following:
0 2 3 4
After capturing one more it will looks following:
0 0 3 4
After capturing one more it will looks following:
0 0 0 4
After cleanup 2 it will looks follwong:
0 2 0 4
After capturing one more it will looks following:
0 0 0 4
ans so on.
If you have segment tree to fetch min on range it possible to done in O(LogN) for each operation.
Here my implementation in C#, this is easy to translate to C++ of Java.
public class SegmentTree
{
private int Mid;
private int[] t;
public SegmentTree(int capacity)
{
this.Mid = 1;
while (Mid <= capacity) Mid *= 2;
this.t = new int[Mid + Mid];
for (int i = Mid; i < this.t.Length; i++) this.t[i] = int.MaxValue;
for (int i = 1; i <= capacity; i++) this.t[Mid + i] = i;
for (int i = Mid - 1; i > 0; i--) t[i] = Math.Min(t[i + i], t[i + i + 1]);
}
public int Capture()
{
int answer = this.t[1];
if (answer == int.MaxValue)
{
throw new Exception("Empty space not found.");
}
this.Update(answer, int.MaxValue);
return answer;
}
public void Erase(int index)
{
this.Update(index, index);
}
private void Update(int i, int value)
{
t[i + Mid] = value;
for (i = (i + Mid) >> 1; i >= 1; i = (i >> 1))
t[i] = Math.Min(t[i + i], t[i + i + 1]);
}
}
Here example of usages:
int n = 4;
var st = new SegmentTree(n);
Console.WriteLine(st.Capture());
Console.WriteLine(st.Capture());
Console.WriteLine(st.Capture());
st.Erase(2);
Console.WriteLine(st.Capture());
Console.WriteLine(st.Capture());
For getting the storage space number I used a min heap approach, PriorityQueue. This works in O(log n) time, removal and insertion both.
I used 2 BiMaps, self-created data structures, for storing the mapping between UIN, color and storage space number. These BiMaps used internally a HashMap and an array of size N.
In first BiMap(BiMap1), a HashMap<color, Set<StorageSpace>> stores the mapping of color to the list of storage spaces's. And a String array String[] colorSpace which stores the color at the storage space index.
In the Second BiMap(BiMap2), a HashMap<UIN, storageSpace> stores the mapping between UIN and storageSpace. And a string arrayString[] uinSpace` stores the UIN at the storage space index.
Querying is straight forward with this approach:
When the input is color, show all the UIN associated with this color.
Get the List of storage spaces from BiMap1, for these spaces use the array in BiMap2 to get the corresponding UIN's.
When the input is color, show all the numbers where these packages are placed(storage space number). Use BiMap1's HashMap to get the list.
Show where an item with a given UIN is placed, i.e. storage space number. Use BiMap2 to get the values from the HashMap.
Now when we are given a storage space to remove, both the BiMaps have to be updated. In BiMap1 get the entry from the array, get the corersponding Set, and remove the space number from this set. From BiMap2 get the UIN from the array, remove it and also remove it from the HashMap.
For both the BiMaps the removal and the insert operations are O(1). And the Min heap works in O(Log n), hence the total time complexity is O(Log N)
I have a List of Tweet objects (homegrown class) and I want to remove NEARLY duplicates based on their text, using the Levenshtein distance. I have already removed the identical duplicates by hashing the tweets' texts but now I want to remove texts that are identical but have up to 2-3 different characters. Since this is a O(n^2) approach, I have to check every single tweet text with all the others available. Here's my code so far:
int distance;
for(Tweet tweet : this.tweets) {
distance = 0;
Iterator<Tweet> iter = this.tweets.iterator();
while(iter.hasNext()) {
Tweet currentTweet = iter.next();
distance = Levenshtein.distance(tweet.getText(), currentTweet.getText());
if(distance < 3 && (tweet.getID() != currentTweet.getID())) {
iter.remove();
}
}
}
The first problem is that the code throws ConcurrentModificationException at some point and never completes. The second one: can I do anything better than this double loop? The list of tweets contains nearly 400.000 tweets so we're talking about 160 billion iterations!
This solution works for the question in hand(so far tested with possible inputs) but the normal set operations to remove duplicates wont work if you dont implement the full contract for compare to return 1,0 and -1.
Why dont you implement your own compare operation using the Set which can have only distinct values. It is going to be O(n log(n)).
Set set = new TreeSet(new Comparator() {
#Override
public int compare(Tweet first, Tweet second) {
int distance = Levenshtein.distance(first.getText(), second.getText());
if(distance < 3){
return 0;
}
return 1;
}
});
set.addAll(this.tweets);
this.tweets = new ArrayList<Tweet>(set);
As for the ConcurrentModificationException: As the others pointed out, I was removing elements from a list that I was also iterating in the outer for-each. Changing the for-each into a normal for resolved the problem.
As for the O(n^2) approach: There's no "better" algorithm regarding its complexity, than a O(n^2) approach. What I'm trying to do is an "all-to-all" comparison to find nearly duplicate elements. Of course there are optimizations to lower the total capacity of n, parallelization to concurrently parse sub-lists of the original list, but the complexity is quadratic at all times.
sorry for limited code, as i have quite no idea how to do it, and parts of the code are not a code, just an explanation what i need. The base is:
arrayList<double> resultTopTen = new arrayList<double();
arrayList<double> conditions = new arrayList<double(); // this arrayList can be of a very large size milion+, gets filled by different code
double result = 0;
for (int i = 0, i < conditions.size(), i++){ //multithread this
loopResult = conditions.get(i) + 5;
if (result.size() < 10){
resultTopTen.add(loopResult);
}
else{
//this part i don't know, if this loopResult belongs to the TOP 10 loopResults so far, just by size, replace the smallest one with current, so that i will get updated resultTopTen in this point of loop.
}
}
loopResult = conditions.get(i) + 5; part is just an example, calculation is different, in fact it is not even double, so it is not possible simply to sort conditions and go from there.
for (int i = 0, i < conditions.size(), i++) part means i have to iterate through input condition list, and execute the calculation and get result for every condition in conditionlist, Don't have to be in order at all.
The multithreading part is the thing i have really no idea how to do, but as the conditions arrayList is really large, i would like to calculate it somehow in parallel, as if i do it just as it is in the code in a simple loop in 1 thread, i wont get my computing resources utilized fully. The trick here is how to split the conditions, and then collect result. For simplicity if i would like to do it in 2 threads, i would split conditions in half, make 1 thread do the same loop for 1st half and second for second, i would get 2 resultTopTen, which i can put together afterwards, But much better would be to split the thing in to as many threads as system resources provide(for example until cpu ut <90%, ram <90%). Is that possible?
Use parallel stream of Java 8.
static class TopN<T> {
final TreeSet<T> max;
final int size;
TopN(int size, Comparator<T> comparator) {
this.max = new TreeSet<>(comparator);
this.size = size;
}
void add(T n) {
max.add(n);
if (max.size() > size)
max.remove(max.last());
}
void combine(TopN<T> o) {
for (T e : o.max)
add(e);
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
List<Double> conditions = new ArrayList<>();
// add elements to conditions
TopN<Double> maxN = conditions.parallelStream()
.map(d -> d + 5) // some calculation
.collect(() -> new TopN<Double>(10, (a, b) -> Double.compare(a, b)),
TopN::add, TopN::combine);
System.out.println(maxN.max);
}
Class TopN holds top n items of T.
This code prints minimum top 10 in conditions (add 5 to each element).
Let me simplify your question, from what I understand, please confirm or add:
Requirement: You want to find top10 results from list called conditions.
Procedure: You want multiple threads to process your logic of finding the top10 results and accumulate the results to give top10.
Please also share the logic you want to implement to get top10 elements or it is just a descending order of list and it's top 10 elements.
I have an ArrayList, which contains game objects sorted by their 'Z' (float) position from lower to higher. I'm not sure if ArrayList is the best choice for it but I have come up with such a solution to find an index of insertion in a complexity faster than linear (worst case):
GameObject go = new GameObject();
int index = 0;
int start = 0, end = displayList.size(); // displayList is the ArrayList
while(end - start > 0)
{
index = (start + end) / 2;
if(go.depthZ >= displayList.get(index).depthZ)
start = index + 1;
else if(go.depthZ < displayList.get(index).depthZ)
end = index - 1;
}
while(index > 0 && go.depthZ < displayList.get(index).depthZ)
index--;
while(index < displayList.size() && go.depthZ >= displayList.get(index).depthZ)
index++;
The catch is that the element has to be inserted in a specific place in the chain of elements with equal value of depthZ - at the end of this chain. That's why I need 2 additional while loops after the binary search which I assume aren't too expensive becouse binary search gives me some approximation of this place.
Still I'm wondering if there's some better solution or some known algorithms for such problem which I haven't heard of? Maybe using different data structure than ArrayList? At the moment I ignore the worst case insertion O(n) (inserting at the begining or middle) becouse using a normal List I wouldn't be able to find an index to insert using method above.
You should try to use balanced search tree (red-black tree for example) instead of array. First you can try to use TreeMap witch uses a red-black tree inside to see if it's satisfy your requirements. Possible implementation:
Map<Float, List<Object>> map = new TreeMap<Float, List<Object>>(){
#Override
public List<Object> get(Object key) {
List<Object> list = super.get(key);
if (list == null) {
list = new ArrayList<Object>();
put((Float) key, list);
}
return list;
}
};
Example of usage:
map.get(0.5f).add("hello");
map.get(0.5f).add("world");
map.get(0.6f).add("!");
System.out.println(map);
One way to do it would to do a halving search, where the first search is half way thru your list (list.size()/2), then for the next one you can do half of that, and so on. With this exponential method, instead of having to do 4096 searches when you have 4096 objects, you only need 12 searches
sorry for the complete disregard for technical terms, I am not the best at terms :P
Unless I overlook something, your approach is essentially correct (but there's an error, see below), in the sense that your first while tries to compute the insert-index such that it will be placed after all lower OR EQUAL Z: there's correctly an equal sign in your first test (updating "start" if it yields TRUE).
Then, of course, there's no need to worry anymore about its position among equals. However, your follow-up while destroys this nice situation: the test in the first follow-up while yields always TRUE (one time) and so you move back; and then you need the second follow-up while to undo that. So, you should remove BOTH follow-up whiles and you're done...
However, there's a little problem with your first while, such that it doesn't always exactly do what the purpose is. I guess that the faulty outcomes triggered you to implement the follow-up whiles to "repair" that.
Here's the issue in your while. Suppose you have a try-index (start+end)/2 that points to a larger Z, but the one just before it has value Z. You then get into your second test (elseif) and set "end" to the position where that Z-value resides. Finally you wind up with precisely that position.
The remedy is simple: in your elseif assignment, put "end = index" (without the -1). Final remark: the test in the elseif is unnecessary, just else is sufficient.
So, all in all you get
GameObject go = new GameObject();
int index = 0;
int start = 0, end = displayList.size(); // displayList is the ArrayList
while(end - start > 0)
{
index = (start + end) / 2;
if(go.depthZ >= displayList.get(index).depthZ)
start = index + 1;
else
end = index;
}
(I hope I haven't overlooked something trivial...)
Add 1 to the least significant byte of the key (with carry); binary search for that insert position; and insert it there.
Your binary search has to be so constructed as to end at the leftmost of a sequence of duplicates, but this is trivial given an understanding of the various Binary search algorithms.