Re: std::map get n max elements

From:
Leigh Johnston <leigh@i42.co.uk>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Wed, 27 Apr 2011 21:59:20 +0100
Message-ID:
<z4GdnbzVVrU6HiXQnZ2dnUVZ8jmdnZ2d@giganews.com>
On 27/04/2011 21:32, Leigh Johnston wrote:

On 27/04/2011 21:29, Philipp Kraus wrote:

On 2011-04-27 21:29:04 +0200, Noah Roberts said:

On 4/27/2011 12:24 PM, Philipp Kraus wrote:

Hello,

I've got a std::map<std::string, std::size_t>. How can I extract the
n-th biggest elements. For example:
the map: map["a"] = 5, map["b"] = 5, map["c"] = 7, map["d"] = 10,
map["e"] = 10

I would like to get a map only with (n=3)
newmap["e"] = 10
newmap["d"] = 10
newmap["c"] = 7

I need only the key values, also a std::vector with ("e", "d", "c") can
be the result.


Looks like a basic max algorithm to me.

std::pair<std::string,std::size_t> is going to be the value type of
your map if you iterate it. Should be fairly straight forward from
there.


I'm a little bit suprised, because If i get the max of my elements n
times, I'll get only the max. Normally I must sort the map and cut the
n-th max elements (upper or lower bounded elements) or get n times the
max and remove after each run the max element from my map.

But on a std::map I can't sort the data on the value part, so I must
copy the std::map to a multimap, sort and cut. So my question is now:
Can I do it on a std::map without a lot of runs over the map?


I can think of two solutions:
1) copy map iterators into a vector and sort that;
2) use Boost.Bimap instead.


Actually I have a third solution which I *think* would be more efficient
than the vector solution:

int main()
{
    typedef std::map<std::string, std::size_t> data_t;
    data_t data;
    data["a"] = 10;
    data["b"] = 5;
    data["c"] = 10;
    data["d"] = 2;
    data["e"] = 7;
    typedef std::multimap<std::size_t, data_t::const_iterator> top3_t;
    top3_t top3;
    for (data_t::const_iterator i = data.begin(); i != data.end(); ++i)
    {
        if (top3.size() < 3 || i->second > top3.begin()->first)
            top3.insert(std::make_pair(i->second, i));
        if (top3.size() == 4)
            top3.erase(top3.begin());
    }
    std::cout << "top 3" << std::endl;
    for (top3_t::const_iterator i = top3.begin(); i != top3.end(); ++i)
        std::cout << "[\"" << i->second->first << "\"] = " <<
i->second->second << std::endl;
}
        std::cout << "[\"" << i->second->first << "\"] = " <<
i->second->second << std::endl;
}

I just knocked this up in 10 minutes so no guarantees... :)

/Leigh

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