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DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2025.31

Compressibility Measures and Succinct Data Structures for Piecewise Linear Approximations

Authors: Paolo Ferragina and Filippo Lari

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 359, 36th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2025)

Abstract

We study the problem of deriving compressibility measures for Piecewise Linear Approximations (PLAs), i.e., error-bounded approximations of a set of two-dimensional increasing data points using a sequence of segments. Such approximations are widely used tools in implementing many learned data structures, which mix learning models with traditional algorithmic design blocks to exploit regularities in the underlying data distribution, providing novel and effective space-time trade-offs. We introduce the first lower bounds to the cost of storing PLAs in two settings, namely compression and indexing. We then compare these compressibility measures to known data structures, and show that they are asymptotically optimal up to a constant factor from the space lower bounds. Finally, we design the first data structures for the aforementioned settings that achieve the space lower bounds plus small additive terms, which turn out to be succinct in most practical cases. Our data structures support the efficient retrieval and evaluation of a segment in the (compressed) PLA for a given x-value, which is a core operation in any learned data structure relying on PLAs. As a result, our paper offers the first theoretical analysis of the maximum compressibility achievable by PLA-based learned data structures, and provides novel storage schemes for PLAs offering strong theoretical guarantees while also suggesting simple and efficient practical implementations.

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Paolo Ferragina and Filippo Lari. Compressibility Measures and Succinct Data Structures for Piecewise Linear Approximations. In 36th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 359, pp. 31:1-31:15, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{ferragina_et_al:LIPIcs.ISAAC.2025.31,
  author =	{Ferragina, Paolo and Lari, Filippo},
  title =	{{Compressibility Measures and Succinct Data Structures for Piecewise Linear Approximations}},
  booktitle =	{36th International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC 2025)},
  pages =	{31:1--31:15},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-408-6},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{359},
  editor =	{Chen, Ho-Lin and Hon, Wing-Kai and Tsai, Meng-Tsung},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2025.31},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-249397},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.ISAAC.2025.31},
  annote =	{Keywords: Piecewise Linear Approximations, Succinct Data Structures, Lower Bounds}
}

Document

DOI: 10.4230/LIPIcs.CPM.2025.7

FL-RMQ: A Learned Approach to Range Minimum Queries

Authors: Paolo Ferragina and Filippo Lari

Published in: LIPIcs, Volume 331, 36th Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Pattern Matching (CPM 2025)

Abstract

We address the problem of designing and implementing a data structure for the Range Minimum Query problem. We show a surprising connection between this classical problem and the geometry of a properly defined set of points in the Cartesian plane. Building on this insight, we hinge upon a well-known result in Computational Geometry to introduce the first RMQ solution that exploits (i.e., learns) the distribution of such 2D-points via proper error-bounded linear approximations. Because of these features, we name the resulting data structure: Fully-Learned RMQ, shortly FL-RMQ. We prove theoretical bounds for its space usage and query time, covering both worst-case scenarios and average-case performance for uniformly distributed inputs. These bounds compare favorably with the ones achievable by the best-known indexing solutions (i.e., the ones that allow access to the indexed array), especially when the input data follow some geometric regularities that we characterize in the paper, thus providing principled evidence of FL-RMQ being a novel data-aware solution to the RMQ problem. We corroborate our theoretical findings with a wide set of experiments showing that FL-RMQ offers more robust space-time trade-offs than the other known practical indexing solutions on both artificial and real-world datasets. We believe that our novel approach to the RMQ problem is noteworthy not only for its interesting space-time trade-offs, but also because it is flexible enough to be applied easily to the encoding variant of RMQ (i.e., the one that does not allow access to the indexed array), and moreover, because it paves the way to research opportunities on possibly other problems.

Cite as

Paolo Ferragina and Filippo Lari. FL-RMQ: A Learned Approach to Range Minimum Queries. In 36th Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Pattern Matching (CPM 2025). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 331, pp. 7:1-7:23, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2025)

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@InProceedings{ferragina_et_al:LIPIcs.CPM.2025.7,
  author =	{Ferragina, Paolo and Lari, Filippo},
  title =	{{FL-RMQ: A Learned Approach to Range Minimum Queries}},
  booktitle =	{36th Annual Symposium on Combinatorial Pattern Matching (CPM 2025)},
  pages =	{7:1--7:23},
  series =	{Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs)},
  ISBN =	{978-3-95977-369-0},
  ISSN =	{1868-8969},
  year =	{2025},
  volume =	{331},
  editor =	{Bonizzoni, Paola and M\"{a}kinen, Veli},
  publisher =	{Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik},
  address =	{Dagstuhl, Germany},
  URL =		{https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/LIPIcs.CPM.2025.7},
  URN =		{urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-231014},
  doi =		{10.4230/LIPIcs.CPM.2025.7},
  annote =	{Keywords: Range-Minimum query, Learned data structures, Compact data structures, Experimental results}
}

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Documents authored by Lari, Filippo

Compressibility Measures and Succinct Data Structures for Piecewise Linear Approximations

Abstract

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FL-RMQ: A Learned Approach to Range Minimum Queries

Abstract

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