NIST

optimal polyphase merge

(algorithm)

Definition: A polyphase merge which seeks to minimize the number of merge passes by allocating output runs of each pass to the various output files. Since polyphase merging must have a different number of runs in each file to be efficient, one seeks the optimal way of selecting how many runs go into each output file. A series of kth order Fibonacci numbers is one way to select the number of runs.

See also merge, polyphase merge, optimal merge.

Author: ASK


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Entry modified 17 December 2004.
HTML page formatted Mon Feb 2 13:10:40 2015.

Cite this as:
Art S. Kagel, "optimal polyphase merge", in Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures [online], Vreda Pieterse and Paul E. Black, eds. 17 December 2004. (accessed TODAY) Available from: http://www.nist.gov/dads/HTML/optimpolymrg.html