How to use binary search on an existing SortedList with a key function?

Question

I would like to use binary search on a SortedList with a key function, e.g. similarly to bisect_right() in the bisect module. However, SortedList.bisect_right() only supports searching by value. How to make it work with a key function?

Answer 1

If you have a SortedList already and it's sorted by the given key, you can use bisect.bisect_right on that, e.g.:

bisect.bisect_right(sorted_list, value, key=keyfunc)

If you need to search repeatedly, it would be more efficient to create a SortedKeyList and use its bisect_key_right() method. The extra efficiency comes from not indexing the sorted list during a binary search, as that itself is a O(log(n)) operation.

Answer 2

You specify the key for a SortedList in its constructor.

https://grantjenks.com/docs/sortedcontainers/sortedlist.html#sortedcontainers.SortedList

The SortedList is sorted according to that key, and the bisect methods in SortedList necessarily use the same key, since bisection requires an understanding of how the list is sorted.