Priority Queue in Data Structure

Earlier in we have seen Min-Heap and Max-Heap Implementation. Priority Queue is its built-in implementation in Java.

In this article we will see how to perform Min-Heap and Max-Heap using Priority Queue.

Brief:

A priority queue is an abstract data type where each element has a “priority” assigned to it. So the element with the higher priority is served before the other elements. Click here to know in detail about max-Heap and min-Heap. (Source : Wiki)

Return Type	Method	Description
boolean	offer(E e)	Inserts the specified element into this priority queue.
E	peek()	Retrieves, but does not remove, the head of this queue, or returns null if this queue is empty.
E	poll()	Retrieves and removes the head of this queue, or returns null if this queue is empty.
int	size()	Returns the number of elements in this collection.
void	clear()	Removes all of the elements from this priority queue.
boolean	contains(Object o)	Returns true if this queue contains the specified element.
Iterator<E>	iterator()	Returns an iterator over the elements in this queue.
boolean	remove(Object o)	Removes a single instance of the specified element from this queue, if it is present.
Comparator<? super E>	comparator()	Returns the comparator used to order the elements in this queue, or null if this queue is sorted according to the natural ordering of its elements.

 

Min-Heap using Priority Queue:Run This Code

Output:
[1, 4, 2, 9, 6, 3, 8]
Min Element in the Priority Queue: 1
Min Element in the Priority Queue: 2
Min Element in the Priority Queue: 3
Priority Queue Size: 4

Max-Heap using Priority Queue:

This gets bit tricky here. By default the Priority Queue works as min-Heap. To implement the max-Heap we need to change the way priority queue works internally by overriding the Comparator.

Complete Code:Run This Code

Run This Code

Output:
[9, 6, 8, 1, 4, 2, 3]
Max Element in the Priority Queue: 9
Max Element in the Priority Queue: 8
Max Element in the Priority Queue: 6
Priority Queue Size: 4

Reference : https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/PriorityQueue.html