Worst-case Analysis of Set Union Algorithms
Journal of the ACM (JACM)
Data structures and network algorithms
Data structures and network algorithms
Efficiency of a Good But Not Linear Set Union Algorithm
Journal of the ACM (JACM)
Applications of Path Compression on Balanced Trees
Journal of the ACM (JACM)
An improved equivalence algorithm
Communications of the ACM
The Design and Analysis of Computer Algorithms
The Design and Analysis of Computer Algorithms
Data structures and algorithms for disjoint set union problems
ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR)
Algorithms and theory of computation handbook
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We consider the set union problem (SUP) which consists in designing data for manipulation of a family of disjoint sets which partition a given universe of n elements. In response to a work of Tarjan we prove that the POSTORDER strategy for SUP has a linear length (thus solving a problem of Hart and Sharir). On the other side, we provide a data structure and axioms for an on line strategy-LOCAL POSTORDER-for SUP which fails to be linear but it has a very slow-indeed in the theory of finite sets unprovable-growth. This complements a result of Tarjan who showed an Ackermann type growth for a related problem. Our results may be summarized by saying that (in finite set theory) we may assume that our algorithms are linear (although we know that in fact they fail to be linear). Perhaps this is the first occurrence of unprovability in the complexity analysis of algorithms.