Priority Queue

After reading this chapter and engaging in the embedded activities and reflections, you should be able to:

• Describe what Priority Queue is and how it is different from standard Queue.
• Describe the core operations of Priority Queue.
• Contrast efficiency of alternative implementation approaches (e.g., sorted/unsorted sequence vs. binary heap).
• Enumerate the structure and order properties of binary heap.
• Differentiate binary search trees from binary heaps.
• Explain how a binary heap can be represented using a (ranked) array.
• Explain and trace the core operations of Priority Queue with Binary Heap implementation.
• Understand the operations of Binary Heap well enough to implement it.
• Explain the role of the overloaded non-default constructor of PriorityQueue.
• Describe how the "natural ordering" of objects is established in Java.
• Explain the difference between Comparable and Comparator interfaces.

Starter code for this chapter