[Python-Dev] deque implementation question (original) (raw)

Max Moroz maxmoroz at gmail.com
Sat Jul 15 03:01:36 EDT 2017


What would be the disadvantage of implementing collections.deque as a circular array (rather than a doubly linked list of blocks)? My naive thinking was that a circular array would maintain the current O(1) append/pop from either side, and would improve index lookup in the middle from O(n) to O(1). What am I missing?

The insertion/removal of an arbitrary item specified by a pointer would increase from constant time to linear, but since we don't have pointers this is a moot point.

Of course when the circular array is full, it will need to be reallocated, but the amortized cost of that is still O(1). (Moreover, for a bounded deque, there's even an option of preallocation, which would completely eliminate reallocations.)

Thanks

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