Significant bits and perfect sketches #
The perfect sketch used in fusion trees retains the most significant differing bit of each adjacent pair of stored keys. Packing these selected bits preserves strict order on the stored keys. It need not preserve the position of an arbitrary query among those keys: query correction is a separate step. This module makes no claim about word-RAM running time.
Main definitions #
relevantBits: the bits selected by adjacent pairs of keys.
Main results #
relevantBits_card_le: at most one bit is selected per adjacent pair.strictMono_sketch: perfect sketches preserve strict order on the stored keys.
References #
See [FW93] and MIT 6.851, Spring 2021, Lecture 12, sections 4–5.
There are at most n - 1 relevant positions for n keys, including the empty case.
For strictly increasing bounded keys, every relevant bit lies within the word width.
Perfect sketches preserve strict order on all stored keys. This statement concerns stored keys only, and does not justify locating an arbitrary query by its sketch alone.
In particular, the stored keys have distinct perfect sketches.