Heap operations

The journey into algorithmic wonders would be incomplete without exploring heaps. Heaps are unique structures prioritizing data in a specific order, ascending or descending. At the heart of a heap lies its promise: the element with the highest (or lowest) priority will always be at the top. With the C++ STL, managing heaps becomes intuitive, lending efficiency and power to applications requiring priority-based operations.

Constructing heaps with std::make_heap

Creating a heap from a random data collection is the first step in the process. With std::make_heap, one can swiftly transform any sequence into a max heap, where the largest element is at the beginning. The following code demonstrates the use of std::make_heap:

std::vector<int> v = {3, 7, 2, 5, 1, 7, 4, 9};
std::make_heap(v.begin(), v.end());

With the simple call above, our v vector now holds a valid max heap. Based on the given comparator or default comparison, the most significant element will...