Alex's Anthology of Algorithms Common Code for Contests in Concise C++
Elementary Algorithms / Array Transformations

Given a range of $n$ numerical elements, reassign each element to an integer in the domain $[0, k)$, where $k$ is the number of distinct elements in the original range, while preserving the initial relative ordering of elements. That is, if $a$ is the array of original values and $b$ is the array of compressed values, then every pair of indices $i, j$ in $[0, n)$ shall satisfy $a[i] < a[j]$ if and only if $b[i] < b[j]$.

The two functions below take a ForwardIterator range, rewrite it in place, and discard the mapping. The comparator comp defines the value ordering: comp(a, b) is true when a precedes b.

  • compress1(lo, hi, comp = std::less<>()) performs the compression by sorting the array, removing duplicates, and binary searching for the position of each original value.
  • compress2(lo, hi, comp = std::less<>()) achieves the same result by inserting all values into an std::map, which automatically removes duplicate values and supports efficient lookups of the compressed values.

Implementation

#include <algorithm>
#include <cassert>
#include <functional>
#include <iterator>
#include <map>
#include <vector>

template<typename It, typename Compare = std::less<>>
void compress1(It lo, It hi, Compare comp = Compare{}) {
  using T = typename std::iterator_traits<It>::value_type;
  std::vector<T> v(lo, hi);
  std::sort(v.begin(), v.end(), comp);
  v.erase(
      std::unique(
          v.begin(), v.end(), [&](const T &a, const T &b) { return !comp(a, b) && !comp(b, a); }
      ),
      v.end()
  );
  for (It it = lo; it != hi; ++it) {
    *it = static_cast<int>(std::lower_bound(v.begin(), v.end(), *it, comp) - v.begin());
  }
}

template<typename It, typename Compare = std::less<>>
void compress2(It lo, It hi, Compare comp = Compare{}) {
  using T = typename std::iterator_traits<It>::value_type;
  std::map<T, int, Compare> m(comp);
  for (It it = lo; it != hi; ++it) {
    m[*it] = 0;
  }
  int id = 0;
  for (auto &[key, val] : m) {
    val = id++;
  }
  for (It it = lo; it != hi; ++it) {
    *it = m[*it];
  }
}

Compressor retains the sorted table of distinct values so that arbitrary values can be mapped to and from compressed ranks long after construction, such as for offline queries arriving separately from the array being compressed. It uses std::less<T> by default; to customize the ordering, instantiate Compressor<T, Compare> and pass the comparator to either constructor.

  • Compressor<T>() constructs an empty compressor. Register values with add(x), then call build() once before the first query.
  • Compressor<T>(lo, hi) constructs a compressor from the half-open iterator range $[{\htmlClass{math-inline-code}{\texttt{lo}}}, {\htmlClass{math-inline-code}{\texttt{hi}}})$.
  • size() returns the number of distinct registered values $k$.
  • value(r) returns the original value with rank r, inverting rank().
  • contains(x) returns whether x is a registered value.
  • rank(x) returns the compressed value (rank) of x in $[0, k)$. x must have been registered.

Implementation

template<typename T, typename Compare = std::less<T>>
class Compressor {
  Compare comp;
  std::vector<T> v;

 public:
  explicit Compressor(Compare comp = Compare{}) : comp(std::move(comp)) {}

  template<typename It>
  Compressor(It lo, It hi, Compare comp = Compare{}) : comp(std::move(comp)), v(lo, hi) {
    build();
  }

  void build() {
    std::sort(v.begin(), v.end(), comp);
    v.erase(
        std::unique(
            v.begin(), v.end(), [&](const T &a, const T &b) { return !comp(a, b) && !comp(b, a); }
        ),
        v.end()
    );
  }

  void add(const T &x) { v.push_back(x); }
  int size() const { return static_cast<int>(v.size()); }
  const T &value(int r) const { return v[r]; }
  bool contains(const T &x) const { return std::binary_search(v.begin(), v.end(), x, comp); }

  int rank(const T &x) const {
    int r = static_cast<int>(std::lower_bound(v.begin(), v.end(), x, comp) - v.begin());
    assert(r < size() && !comp(x, v[r]));  // x must be registered.
    return r;
  }
};

Example Usage

#include <cassert>
using namespace std;

int main() {
  {
    vector<int> a{1, 30, 30, 7, 9, 8, 99, 99};
    compress1(a.begin(), a.end());
    assert((a == vector<int>{0, 4, 4, 1, 3, 2, 5, 5}));
  }
  {
    vector<int> a{1, 30, 30, 7, 9, 8, 99, 99};
    compress2(a.begin(), a.end());
    assert((a == vector<int>{0, 4, 4, 1, 3, 2, 5, 5}));
  }
  {  // Non-integral types work too, as long as ints can be assigned to them.
    vector<double> a{0.5, -1.0, 3, -1.0, 20, 0.5};
    compress1(a.begin(), a.end());
    assert((a == vector<double>{1, 0, 2, 0, 3, 1}));
  }
  {
    vector<int> a{10, 5, 30, 5, 20};
    Compressor<int> cc(a.begin(), a.end());
    assert(cc.size() == 4);
    assert(cc.rank(5) == 0);
    assert(cc.rank(30) == 3);
    assert(cc.value(2) == 20);
    assert(cc.contains(10) && !cc.contains(7));
  }
  {  // Register values incrementally, then build once before querying.
    Compressor<double> cc;
    cc.add(0.5);
    cc.add(-1.0);
    cc.add(0.5);
    cc.build();
    assert(cc.size() == 2);
    assert(cc.rank(0.5) == 1);
    assert(cc.value(0) == -1.0);
  }
  {
    vector<int> a{10, 30, 20, 10};
    Compressor<int, greater<int>> cc(a.begin(), a.end());
    assert(cc.rank(30) == 0 && cc.rank(10) == 2);
    assert(cc.value(1) == 20);
    compress1(a.begin(), a.end(), greater<int>());
    assert((a == vector<int>{2, 0, 1, 2}));
  }
  return 0;
}