Efficient data structure for GUIDs

Question

I am in search of a data structure which enables me to quickly (prefarably O(1)-quickly) determine if a given GUID is a member of a Collection of GUIDs or not.

My cu

Answer 1

Very few data structures offer O(1) access. One's the Array, the other one's the HashMap (David's answer), and I only know one other: The Trie. Here follows a simple implementation of a bit-wise Trie: Has some interesting properties:

• Immune to memory fragmentation since no re-allocations take place.
• O(1) add and existence test. Of course, the constant involved in O(1) is fairly large.

The code:

program Project23;

{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}

uses
  SysUtils, Generics.Collections;

type

  PGuidTrieNode=^TGuidTrieNode;
  TGuidTrieNode = record
    Sub:array[Boolean] of PGuidTrieNode;
  end;
  TGuidByteArray = array[0..15] of Byte;

  TGuidTrie = class
  protected
    Root: PGuidTrieNode;
  public
    constructor Create;
    destructor Destroy;override;

    procedure Add(G: TGUID);
    function Exists(G: TGUID): Boolean;
  end;

{ TGuidTrie }

procedure TGuidTrie.Add(G: TGUID);
var GBA: TGuidByteArray absolute G;
    Node: PGuidTrieNode;
    i: Integer;
    Bit: Integer;
    IsBitSet: Boolean;
const BitMask: array[0..7] of Byte = (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128);
begin
  Assert(SizeOf(G) = SizeOf(TGuidByteArray));
  Node := Root;
  for i:=0 to High(GBA) do
  begin
    for Bit := 0 to 7 do
    begin
      IsBitSet := (GBA[i] and BitMask[Bit]) <> 0;
      if (i = High(GBA)) and (Bit = 7) then
        begin
          // Payload
          Node.Sub[IsBitSet] := Pointer(1);
        end
      else
        begin
          if not Assigned(Node.Sub[IsBitSet]) then
            Node.Sub[IsBitSet] := GetMemory(SizeOf(TGuidTrieNode));
          Node := Node.Sub[IsBitSet];
        end;
    end;
  end;
end;

constructor TGuidTrie.Create;
begin
  Root := GetMemory(SizeOf(TGuidTrieNode))
end;

destructor TGuidTrie.Destroy;

  procedure KillNode(Node: PGuidTrieNode);
  var i:Integer;
  begin
    if Assigned(Node.Sub[True]) then
        if Node.Sub[True] <> Pointer(1) then
        begin
          KillNode(Node.Sub[True]);
        end;
    FreeMemory(Node);
  end;

begin
  KillNode(Root);
  inherited;
end;

function TGuidTrie.Exists(G: TGUID): Boolean;
var GBA: TGuidByteArray absolute G;
    Node: PGuidTrieNode;
    i: Integer;
    Bit: Integer;
    IsBitSet: Boolean;
const BitMask: array[0..7] of Byte = (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128);
begin
  Assert(SizeOf(G) = SizeOf(TGuidByteArray));
  Node := Root;
  for i:=0 to 15 do
  begin
    for Bit := 0 to 7 do
    begin
      IsBitSet := (GBA[i] and BitMask[Bit]) <> 0;
      if not Assigned(Node.Sub[IsBitSet]) then
      begin
        Result := False;
        Exit;
      end;
      Node := Node.Sub[IsBitSet];
    end;
  end;
  Result := True; // Node now contains the Payload
end;

const G1: TGUID = '{68D09F12-3E0D-4963-B32C-4EE3BD90F69C}';
      G2: TGUID = '{BEED37F6-9757-41DC-8463-AF094392652B}';

var T: TGuidTrie;

begin
  try

    T := TGuidTrie.Create;
    try
      if T.Exists(G1) then WriteLn('Exists')
                      else WriteLn('NOT Exists');
      T.Add(G1);
      if T.Exists(G1) then WriteLn('Exists')
                      else WriteLn('NOT Exists');

      if T.Exists(G2) then WriteLn('Exists')
                      else WriteLn('NOT Exists');
      T.Add(G2);
      if T.Exists(G2) then WriteLn('Exists')
                      else WriteLn('NOT Exists');
    finally T.Free;
    end;

  except
    on E: Exception do
      Writeln(E.ClassName, ': ', E.Message);
  end;
end.