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What are some cool and obscure data structure you know of? (programming.dev)

submitted 15 hours ago by protein@programming.dev to c/programming@programming.dev

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[–] duckythescientist@sh.itjust.works 59 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

I'm also not sure if this is obscure, but Bloom Filters! It's a structure that you can add elements to then ask it if it has seen the element before with the answer being either "no" or "probably yes". There's a trade-off between confidence of a "probably yes", how many elements you expect to add, and how big the Bloom Filter is, but it's very space and time efficient. And it uses hash functions which always make for a fun time.

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 15 points 11 hours ago

Relevant xkcd

in Randall's words

Sometimes, you can tell Bloom filters are the wrong tool for the job, but when they're the right one you can never be sure.

[–] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 8 points 13 hours ago

Obscure 10 years ago maybe. These days there have been so many articles about them I bet they're more widely known than more useful and standard things like prefix trees (aka tries).