Fast algorithm for repeated calculation of percentile?

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In an algorithm I have to calculate the 75th percentile of a data set whenever I add a value. Right now I am doing this:

  1. Get value x
  2. Insert x in an already sorted array at the back
  3. swap x down until the array is sorted
  4. Read the element at position array[array.size * 3/4]

Point 3 is O(n), and the rest is O(1), but this is still quite slow, especially if the array gets larger. Is there any way to optimize this?

UPDATE

Thanks Nikita! Since I am using C++ this is the solution easiest to implement. Here is the code:

template<class T>
class IterativePercentile {
public:
  /// Percentile has to be in range [0, 1(
  IterativePercentile(double percentile)
    : _percentile(percentile)
  { }

  // Adds a number in O(log(n))
  void add(const T& x) {
    if (_lower.empty() || x <= _lower.front()) {
      _lower.push_back(x);
      std::push_heap(_lower.begin(), _lower.end(), std::less<T>());
    } else {
      _upper.push_back(x);
      std::push_heap(_upper.begin(), _upper.end(), std::greater<T>());
    }

    unsigned size_lower = (unsigned)((_lower.size() + _upper.size()) * _percentile) + 1;
    if (_lower.size() > size_lower) {
      // lower to upper
      std::pop_heap(_lower.begin(), _lower.end(), std::less<T>());
      _upper.push_back(_lower.back());
      std::push_heap(_upper.begin(), _upper.end(), std::greater<T>());
      _lower.pop_back();
    } else if (_lower.size() < size_lower) {
      // upper to lower
      std::pop_heap(_upper.begin(), _upper.end(), std::greater<T>());
      _lower.push_back(_upper.back());
      std::push_heap(_lower.begin(), _lower.end(), std::less<T>());
      _upper.pop_back();
    }            
  }

  /// Access the percentile in O(1)
  const T& get() const {
    return _lower.front();
  }

  void clear() {
    _lower.clear();
    _upper.clear();
  }

private:
  double _percentile;
  std::vector<T> _lower;
  std::vector<T> _upper;
};
6 Answers

If you can do with an approximate answer, you can use a histogram instead of keeping entire values in memory.

For each new value, add it to the appropriate bin. Calculate percentile 75th by traversing bins and summing counts until 75% of the population size is reached. Percentile value is between bin's (which you stopped at) low bound to high bound.

This will provide O(B) complexity where B is the count of bins, which is range_size/bin_size. (use bin_size appropriate to your user case).

I have implemented this logic in a JVM library: https://github.com/IBM/HBPE which you can use as a reference.

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