PriorityQueue in Java (original) (raw)

Last Updated : 15 Apr, 2025

The PriorityQueue class in Java is part of the **java.util package. It implements a priority heap-based queue that processes elements based on their priority rather than the **FIFO (First-In-First-Out) concept of a **Queue.

**Key Points:

• The PriorityQueue is based on the **Priority Heap.
• The elements of the priority queue are ordered according to the natural ordering, and elements **must implement Comparable, or by a Comparator provided at queue construction time, depending on which constructor is used.
• The size of the Priority Queue is dynamic, this means it will increase or decrease as per the requirement.

**Example:

Java `

// Java Program for PriorityQueue import java.util.PriorityQueue;

public class Geeks { public static void main(String[] args) { // Priority Queue Min Type PriorityQueue p = new PriorityQueue<>();

    // Add elements to the queue
    p.add(3);
    p.add(10);
    p.add(7);
    p.add(2);

    // Print the head of the queue
    System.out.println("Head of Queue: " + p.peek());

}

}

`

PriorityQueue Class Hierarchy in Java

In the below priority queue, an element with a maximum ASCII value will have the highest priority.

**Declaration of PriorityQueue

public class PriorityQueue extends AbstractQueue implements Serializable

where, E is the type of elements held in this queue.

The class implements **Serializable, **Iterable, **Collection, Queue interfaces.

**Important Points:

• PriorityQueue does not permit null.
• We cannot create a PriorityQueue of Objects that are non-comparable.
• PriorityQueue are unbound queues.
• The head of this queue is the least element with respect to the specified ordering.
• Since PriorityQueue is not thread-safe, Java provides PriorityBlockingQueue class that implements the BlockingQueue interface to use in a Java multithreading environment.
• The queue retrieval operations poll, remove, peek, and element access the element at the head of the queue.
• It provides O(log(n)) time for add and poll methods.
• It inherits methods from **AbstractQueue, **AbstractCollection, **Collection, and **Object class.

**Constructors

**1. PriorityQueue(): This method creates a PriorityQueue with the default initial capacity (11) that orders its elements according to their natural ordering.

PriorityQueue pq = new PriorityQueue();

**2. PriorityQueue(Collection c): This creates a PriorityQueue containing the elements in the specified collection.

PriorityQueue pq = new PriorityQueue(Collection c);

**3. PriorityQueue(int initialCapacity): This creates a PriorityQueue with the specified initial capacity that orders its elements according to their natural ordering.

PriorityQueue pq = new PriorityQueue(int initialCapacity);

**4. PriorityQueue(int initialCapacity, Comparator comparator): This creates a PriorityQueue with the specified initial capacity that orders its elements according to the specified comparator.

PriorityQueue pq = new PriorityQueue(int initialCapacity, Comparator comparator);

**5. PriorityQueue(PriorityQueue c): This creates a PriorityQueue containing the elements in the specified priority queue.

PriorityQueue pq = new PriorityQueue(PriorityQueue c);

**6. PriorityQueue(SortedSet c): This creates a PriorityQueue containing the elements in the specified sorted set.

PriorityQueue pq = new PriorityQueue(SortedSet c);

**7. PriorityQueue(Comparator comparator): This creates a PriorityQueue with the default initial capacity and whose elements are ordered according to the specified comparator.

PriorityQueue pq = new PriorityQueue(Comparator c);

**Example:

The example below explains the following basic operations of the priority queue.

• boolean add(E element): This method inserts the specified element into this priority queue.
• public peek(): This method retrieves, but does not remove, the head of this queue, or returns null if this queue is empty.
• public poll(): This method retrieves and removes the head of this queue, or returns null if this queue is empty. Java `

// Java program to demonstrate the // working of PriorityQueue import java.util.*;

class Geeks { public static void main(String args[]) { // Creating empty priority queue PriorityQueue p = new PriorityQueue();

    // Adding items to the pQueue using add()
    p.add(10);
    p.add(20);
    p.add(15);

    // Printing the top element of PriorityQueue
    System.out.println(p.peek());

    // Printing the top element and removing it
    // from the PriorityQueue container
    System.out.println(p.poll());

    // Printing the top element again
    System.out.println(p.peek());
}

}

`

**Different Operations on PriorityQueue

Let’s see how to perform a few frequently used operations on the Priority Queue class.

**1. Adding Elements

To add an element in a priority queue, we can use the add() method. The insertion order is not retained in the PriorityQueue. The elements are stored based on the priority order which is ascending by default.

**Example:

Java `

// Java Program to add elements in a PriorityQueue import java.util.*;

public class Geeks {
public static void main(String args[]) { // Creating PriorityQueue PriorityQueue pq = new PriorityQueue<>();

      for(int i=0;i<3;i++){
        pq.add(i);
        pq.add(1);
    }
  
    System.out.println(pq);
}

}

`

Time and Space Complexities:

• **Time Complexity: O(log n)
• **Space Complexity: O(n), where n is the number of elements in the priority queue.

**Note: We will not get sorted elements by printing PriorityQueue. Below is an example for this,

**Example:

Java `

import java.util.; import java.io.;

public class Geeks {

public static void main(String args[])
{
    PriorityQueue<String> pq = new PriorityQueue<>();

    pq.add("Geeks");
    pq.add("For");
    pq.add("Geeks");

    System.out.println(pq);
}

}

`

Output

[For, Geeks, Geeks]

**2. Removing Elements

To remove an element from a priority queue, we can use the remove() method. If there are multiple such objects, then the first occurrence of the object is removed. Apart from that, the poll() method is also used to remove the head and return it.

Java `

// Java program to remove elements // from a PriorityQueue import java.util.; import java.io.;

public class Geeks {

public static void main(String args[])
{
    PriorityQueue<String> pq = new PriorityQueue<>();

    pq.add("Geeks");
    pq.add("For");
    pq.add("Geeks");

    System.out.println("Initial PriorityQueue " + pq);

    // using the method
    pq.remove("Geeks");

    System.out.println("After Remove: " + pq);

    System.out.println("Poll Method: " + pq.poll());

    System.out.println("Final PriorityQueue: " + pq);
}

}

`

Output

Initial PriorityQueue [For, Geeks, Geeks] After Remove: [For, Geeks] Poll Method: For Final PriorityQueue: [Geeks]

Time and Space Complexities:

• **Time Complexity: O(log n)
• **Space Complexity: O(n), where n is the number of elements in the priority queue.

**3. Accessing the Elements

Queue follows the First In First Out principle, we can access only the head of the queue. To access elements from a priority queue, we can use the **peek() method.

**Example:

Java `

// Java program to access elements // from a PriorityQueue import java.util.*;

class Geeks {

// Main Method
public static void main(String[] args)
{

    // Creating a priority queue
    PriorityQueue<String> pq = new PriorityQueue<>();
    pq.add("Geeks");
    pq.add("For");
    pq.add("Geeks");
    System.out.println("PriorityQueue: " + pq);

    // Using the peek() method
    String element = pq.peek();
    System.out.println("Accessed Element: " + element);
}

}

`

Output

PriorityQueue: [For, Geeks, Geeks] Accessed Element: For

Time and Space Complexities:

• **Time Complexity: O(1)
• **Space Complexity: O(n), where, **n is the number of elements in the priority queue.

**4. Iterating the PriorityQueue

There are multiple ways to iterate through the PriorityQueue. The most famous way is converting the queue to the array and traversing **using an iterator.

**Example:

Java `

// Java program to iterate elements // to a PriorityQueue import java.util.*;

public class Geeks {

// Main Method
public static void main(String args[])
{
    PriorityQueue<String> pq = new PriorityQueue<>();

    pq.add("Geeks");
    pq.add("For");
    pq.add("Geeks");

    Iterator iterator = pq.iterator();

    while (iterator.hasNext()) {
        System.out.print(iterator.next() + " ");
    }
}

}

`

Time and Space Complexities:

• **Time Complexity: O(n)
• **Space Complexity: O(1) per iteration, where n is the number of elements in the priority queue.

Demonstrating Common Operations on PriorityQueue

**Example:

Java `

import java.util.PriorityQueue;

public class Geeks {

public static void main(String[] args) {
    
    // Create a priority queue with initial capacity 10
    PriorityQueue<Integer> pq = new PriorityQueue<>(10);
    
    // Add elements to the queue
    pq.add(3);
    pq.add(1);
    pq.add(2);
    pq.add(5);
    pq.add(4);
    
    // Print the queue
    System.out.println("Priority queue: " + pq);
    
    // Peek at the top element of the queue
    System.out.println("Peek: " + pq.peek());
    
    // Remove the top element of the queue
    pq.poll();
    
    // Print the queue again
    System.out.println("Priority queue after removing top element: " + pq);
    
    // Check if the queue contains a specific element
    System.out.println("Does the queue contain 3? " + pq.contains(3));
    
    // Get the size of the queue
    System.out.println("Size of queue: " + pq.size());
    
    // Remove all elements from the queue
    pq.clear();
    
    // Check if the queue is empty
    System.out.println("Is the queue empty? " + pq.isEmpty());
}

}

`

Output

Priority queue: [1, 3, 2, 5, 4] Peek: 1 Priority queue after removing top element: [2, 3, 4, 5] Does the queue contain 3? true Size of queue: 4 Is the queue empty? true

**Methods in PriorityQueue Class

**Methods Declared in Class java.util.AbstractQueue

**Methods Declared in Class java.util.AbstractCollection

**Methods Declared in Interface java.util.Collection

**Methods Declared in Interface java.util.Queue

**Applications:

• Implementing Dijkstra’s and Prim’s algorithms.
• Maximize array sum after K negations