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What is Judy?
Judy is a C library that provides a state-of-the-art core technology
that implements a sparse dynamic array. Judy arrays are declared
simply with a null pointer. A Judy array consumes memory only when it
is populated, yet can grow to take advantage of all available memory
if desired.
Judy's key benefits are scalability, high performance, and memory
efficiency. A Judy array is extensible and can scale up to a very
large number of elements, bounded only by machine memory. Since Judy
is designed as an unbounded array, the size of a Judy array is not
pre-allocated but grows and shrinks dynamically with the array
population.
Judy combines scalability with ease of use. The Judy API is accessed
with simple insert, retrieve, and delete calls that do not require
extensive programming. Tuning and configuring are not required (in
fact not even possible). In addition, sort, search, count, and
sequential access capabilities are built into Judy's design.
Judy can be used whenever a developer needs dynamically sized arrays,
associative arrays or a simple-to-use interface that requires no
rework for expansion or contraction.
Judy can replace many common data structures, such as arrays, sparse
arrays, hash tables, B-trees, binary trees, linear lists, skiplists,
other sort and search algorithms, and counting functions.
Detailed Descriptions
Author
Judy was invented by Doug Baskins (dougbaskins .AT, yahoo.com) and
implemented by Hewlett-Packard. (Note: Judy is named for the
inventor's sister, after discarding many proposed names.)
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