heap

Given an array and a positive integer k, write a program to find the kth smallest element in the array. This is an excellent problem to learn problem-solving using the max and min heap data structures. The quick-select approach (divide and conquer) is also worth exploring because it helps to optimize time complexity to O(n) on average.

Heap is a complete binary tree structure where each node satisfies a heap property. We learn two types of heap data structure: 1) Max heap, which satisfies the max heap property, and 2) Min heap, which satisfies the min-heap property. We use heap data structures to implement priority queues and solve several coding problems efficiently.