SortedContainers
================

.. image:: https://api.travis-ci.org/grantjenks/sorted_containers.svg
    :target: http://www.grantjenks.com/docs/sortedcontainers/

SortedContainers is an Apache2 licensed containers library, written in
pure-Python, and fast as C-extensions.

Python's standard library is great until you need a sorted container type. Many
will attest that you can get really far without one, but the moment you **really
need** a sorted list, dict, or set, you're faced with a dozen different
implementations, most using C-extensions without great documentation and
benchmarking.

Things shouldn't be this way. Not in Python.

::

    >>> sl = sortedcontainers.SortedList(xrange(10000000))
    >>> 1234567 in sl
    True
    >>> sl[7654321]
    7654321
    >>> sl.add(1234567)
    >>> sl.count(1234567)
    2
    >>> sl *= 3
    >>> len(sl)
    30000003

**Note:** don't try this at home without at least a gigabyte of memory. In
Python an integer requires at least 12 bytes. SortedList will add about 4
bytes per object stored in the container. That's pretty hard to beat as it's
the cost of a pointer to each object. It's also 66% less overhead than a
typical binary tree implementation (e.g. red-black tree, avl tree, aa tree,
splay tree, treap, etc.) for which every node must also store two pointers to
children nodes.

SortedContainers takes all of the work out of Python sorted types - making your
deployment and use of Python easy. There's no need to install a C compiler or
pre-build and distribute custom extensions. Performance is a feature and testing
has 100% coverage with unit tests and hours of stress.

Testimonials
------------

**Alex Martelli**, `Wikipedia`_

Good stuff! ... I like the `simple, effective implementation`_ idea of splitting
the sorted containers into smaller "fragments" to avoid the O(N) insertion costs.

.. _`Wikipedia`: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Martelli
.. _`simple, effective implementation`: http://www.grantjenks.com/docs/sortedcontainers/implementation.html

**Jeff Knupp**, `Review of SortedContainers`_

That last part, "fast as C-extensions," was difficult to believe. I would need
some sort of `performance comparison`_ to be convinced this is true. The author
includes this in the docs. It is.

.. _`Review of SortedContainers`: http://reviews.jeffknupp.com/reviews/sortedcontainers/3/
.. _`performance comparison`: http://www.grantjenks.com/docs/sortedcontainers/performance.html

**Kevin Samuel**, `Formations Python`_

I'm quite amazed, not just by the code quality (it's incredibly
readable and has more comment than code, wow), but the actual
amount of work you put at stuff that is *not* code:
documentation, benchmarking, implementation explanations. Even
the git log is clean and the unit tests run out of the box on
Python 2 and 3.

.. _`Formations Python`: http://formationspython.com/

**Mark Summerfield**, a short plea for `Python Sorted Collections`_

Python's "batteries included" standard library seems to have a battery
missing. And the argument that "we never had it before" has worn thin. It is
time that Python offered a full range of collection classes out of the box,
including sorted ones.

.. _`Python Sorted Collections`: http://www.qtrac.eu/pysorted.html

Features
--------

- Pure-Python
- Fully documented
- Benchmark comparison (alternatives, runtimes, load-factors)
- 100% test coverage
- Hours of stress testing
- Performance matters (often faster than C implementations)
- Compatible API (nearly identical to popular blist and rbtree modules)
- Feature-rich (e.g. get the five largest keys in a sorted dict: d.iloc[-5:])
- Pragmatic design (e.g. SortedSet is a Python set with a SortedList index)
- Developed on Python 2.7
- Tested on CPython 2.6, 2.7, 3.2, 3.3, 3.4 and PyPy 2.2+, PyPy3 2.3.1+

Quickstart
----------

Installing SortedContainers is simple with
`pip <http://www.pip-installer.org/>`_::

    $ pip install sortedcontainers

You can access documentation in the interpreter with Python's built-in help
function:

::

    >>> from sortedcontainers import SortedList, SortedSet, SortedDict
    >>> help(SortedList)

Documentation
-------------

Complete documentation including performance comparisons is available at
http://www.grantjenks.com/docs/sortedcontainers/ .

User Guide
..........

For those wanting more details, this part of the documentation describes
introduction, implementation, performance, and development.

- `Introduction`_
- `Performance Comparison`_
- `Load Factor Performance Comparison`_
- `Runtime Performance Comparison`_
- `Simulated Workload Performance Comparison`_
- `Implementation Details`_
- `Developing and Contributing`_

.. _`Introduction`: http://www.grantjenks.com/docs/sortedcontainers/introduction.html
.. _`Performance Comparison`: http://www.grantjenks.com/docs/sortedcontainers/performance.html
.. _`Load Factor Performance Comparison`: http://www.grantjenks.com/docs/sortedcontainers/performance-load.html
.. _`Runtime Performance Comparison`: http://www.grantjenks.com/docs/sortedcontainers/performance-runtime.html
.. _`Simulated Workload Performance Comparison`: http://www.grantjenks.com/docs/sortedcontainers/performance-workload.html
.. _`Implementation Details`: http://www.grantjenks.com/docs/sortedcontainers/implementation.html
.. _`Developing and Contributing`: http://www.grantjenks.com/docs/sortedcontainers/development.html

API Documentation
.................

If you are looking for information on a specific function, class or method, this
part of the documentation is for you.

- `SortedList`_
- `SortedListWithKey`_
- `SortedDict`_
- `SortedSet`_

.. _`SortedList`: http://www.grantjenks.com/docs/sortedcontainers/sortedlist.html
.. _`SortedListWithKey`: http://www.grantjenks.com/docs/sortedcontainers/sortedlistwithkey.html
.. _`SortedDict`: http://www.grantjenks.com/docs/sortedcontainers/sorteddict.html
.. _`SortedSet`: http://www.grantjenks.com/docs/sortedcontainers/sortedset.html

Talks
-----

- `SF Python Holiday Party 2015 Lightning Talk`_
- `DjangoCon 2015 Lightning Talk`_

.. _`SF Python Holiday Party 2015 Lightning Talk`: http://www.grantjenks.com/docs/sortedcontainers/sf-python-2015-lightning-talk.html
.. _`DjangoCon 2015 Lightning Talk`: http://www.grantjenks.com/docs/sortedcontainers/djangocon-2015-lightning-talk.html

Contribute
----------

Collaborators are welcome!

#. Check for open issues or open a fresh issue to start a discussion around a
   bug.  There is a Contributor Friendly tag for issues that should be used by
   people who are not very familiar with the codebase yet.
#. Fork `the repository <https://github.com/grantjenks/sorted_containers>`_ on
   GitHub and start making your changes to a new branch.
#. Write a test which shows that the bug was fixed.
#. Send a pull request and bug the maintainer until it gets merged and
   published. :)

Useful Links
------------

- `SortedContainers Project @ GrantJenks.com`_
- `SortedContainers @ PyPI`_
- `SortedContainers @ Github`_
- `Issue Tracker`_

.. _`SortedContainers Project @ GrantJenks.com`: http://www.grantjenks.com/docs/sortedcontainers/
.. _`SortedContainers @ PyPI`: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/sortedcontainers
.. _`SortedContainers @ Github`: https://github.com/grantjenks/sorted_containers
.. _`Issue Tracker`: https://github.com/grantjenks/sorted_containers/issues

SortedContainers License
------------------------

Copyright 2014-2015 Grant Jenks

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.
