Is there an efficient data structure for row and column swapping? - data-structures

Question

I have a matrix of numbers and I'd like to be able to:
Swap rows
Swap columns
If I were to use an array of pointers to rows, then I can easily switch between rows in O(1) but swapping a column is O(N) where N is the amount of rows.
I have a distinct feeling there isn't a win-win data structure that gives O(1) for both operations, though I'm not sure how to prove it. Or am I wrong?

Answer 1

Without having thought this entirely through:
I think your idea with the pointers to rows is the right start. Then, to be able to "swap" the column I'd just have another array with the size of number of columns and store in each field the index of the current physical position of the column.
m =
[0] -> 1 2 3
[1] -> 4 5 6
[2] -> 7 8 9
c[] {0,1,2}
Now to exchange column 1 and 2, you would just change c to {0,2,1}
When you then want to read row 1 you'd do
for (i=0; i < colcount; i++) {
print m[1][c[i]];
}

Answer 2

Just a random though here (no experience of how well this really works, and it's a late night without coffee):
What I'm thinking is for the internals of the matrix to be a hashtable as opposed to an array.
Every cell within the array has three pieces of information:
The row in which the cell resides
The column in which the cell resides
The value of the cell
In my mind, this is readily represented by the tuple ((i, j), v), where (i, j) denotes the position of the cell (i-th row, j-th column), and v
The would be a somewhat normal representation of a matrix. But let's astract the ideas here. Rather than i denoting the row as a position (i.e. 0 before 1 before 2 before 3 etc.), let's just consider i to be some sort of canonical identifier for it's corresponding row. Let's do the same for j. (While in the most general case, i and j could then be unrestricted, let's assume a simple case where they will remain within the ranges [0..M] and [0..N] for an M x N matrix, but don't denote the actual coordinates of a cell).
Now, we need a way to keep track of the identifier for a row, and the current index associated with the row. This clearly requires a key/value data structure, but since the number of indices is fixed (matrices don't usually grow/shrink), and only deals with integral indices, we can implement this as a fixed, one-dimensional array. For a matrix of M rows, we can have (in C):
int RowMap[M];
For the m-th row, RowMap[m] gives the identifier of the row in the current matrix.
We'll use the same thing for columns:
int ColumnMap[N];
where ColumnMap[n] is the identifier of the n-th column.
Now to get back to the hashtable I mentioned at the beginning:
Since we have complete information (the size of the matrix), we should be able to generate a perfect hashing function (without collision). Here's one possibility (for modestly-sized arrays):
int Hash(int row, int column)
{
return row * N + column;
}
If this is the hash function for the hashtable, we should get zero collisions for most sizes of arrays. This allows us to read/write data from the hashtable in O(1) time.
The cool part is interfacing the index of each row/column with the identifiers in the hashtable:
// row and column are given in the usual way, in the range [0..M] and [0..N]
// These parameters are really just used as handles to the internal row and
// column indices
int MatrixLookup(int row, int column)
{
// Get the canonical identifiers of the row and column, and hash them.
int canonicalRow = RowMap[row];
int canonicalColumn = ColumnMap[column];
int hashCode = Hash(canonicalRow, canonicalColumn);
return HashTableLookup(hashCode);
}
Now, since the interface to the matrix only uses these handles, and not the internal identifiers, a swap operation of either rows or columns corresponds to a simple change in the RowMap or ColumnMap array:
// This function simply swaps the values at
// RowMap[row1] and RowMap[row2]
void MatrixSwapRow(int row1, int row2)
{
int canonicalRow1 = RowMap[row1];
int canonicalRow2 = RowMap[row2];
RowMap[row1] = canonicalRow2
RowMap[row2] = canonicalRow1;
}
// This function simply swaps the values at
// ColumnMap[row1] and ColumnMap[row2]
void MatrixSwapColumn(int column1, int column2)
{
int canonicalColumn1 = ColumnMap[column1];
int canonicalColumn2 = ColumnMap[column2];
ColumnMap[row1] = canonicalColumn2
ColumnMap[row2] = canonicalColumn1;
}
So that should be it - a matrix with O(1) access and mutation, as well as O(1) row swapping and O(1) column swapping. Of course, even an O(1) hash access will be slower than the O(1) of array-based access, and more memory will be used, but at least there is equality between rows/columns.
I tried to be as agnostic as possible when it comes to exactly how you implement your matrix, so I wrote some C. If you'd prefer another language, I can change it (it would be best if you understood), but I think it's pretty self descriptive, though I can't ensure it's correctedness as far as C goes, since I'm actually a C++ guys trying to act like a C guy right now (and did I mention I don't have coffee?). Personally, writing in a full OO language would do it the entrie design more justice, and also give the code some beauty, but like I said, this was a quickly whipped up implementation.