[Python-ideas] Adding a thin wrapper class around the functions in stdlib.heapq

[Chris Angelico]

On Wed, Nov 22, 2017 at 3:55 PM, Greg Ewing <greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
> Chris Angelico wrote:
>>
>> So the question is more: why, with Python being the way it is, do the
>> heap functions operate on a list? I think heapq.heapify is the answer:
>> in linear time, it heapifies a list *in place*.
>
>
> There's no reason a Heap object couldn't accomodate that
> case. E.g. the constructor could optionally accept an
> existing list to heapify and wrap.
>

Yeah but if it's wrapping an existing list, it's not really
constructing a new object. Every other constructor in Python will make
something independent of its origin (if you call list() on a list, you
get back a brand new copy, for instance), but to take advantage of
in-place heapification, it would have to mutate the input. I think
that would be even more surprising.

ChrisA