In a Disjoint Set Union, what is the effect of union by rank?
Practice Questions
Q1
In a Disjoint Set Union, what is the effect of union by rank?
It increases the size of the set
It keeps the tree flat by attaching smaller trees under larger trees
It merges sets randomly
It has no effect on the structure
Questions & Step-by-Step Solutions
In a Disjoint Set Union, what is the effect of union by rank?
Step 1: Understand what a Disjoint Set Union (DSU) is. It is a data structure that keeps track of a partition of a set into disjoint (non-overlapping) subsets.
Step 2: Learn about the 'union' operation. This operation combines two subsets into one.
Step 3: Know what 'rank' means. Rank is a way to measure the 'height' or 'depth' of a tree in the DSU.
Step 4: Realize that when we union two trees, we want to keep the overall structure flat to make future operations faster.
Step 5: Union by rank means we always attach the smaller tree (lower rank) under the larger tree (higher rank).
Step 6: This keeps the trees shorter and flatter, which helps in speeding up future union and find operations.
