Heap Usage Patterns

Running top-k, merge k sorted lists, median from two heaps.

Try this in Python

import heapq

nums = [3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9]
print(heapq.nlargest(3, nums))

Key takeaways

• nlargest is fine for small k; heap of size k for streaming.
• Store tuples (priority, tie_breaker, obj) to avoid dict compares.
• Lazy deletion pattern uses stale entries + checks.