On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 7:31 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > You mentioned a approximate algorithm. That's great! I will check it out > later. But, Is there a way to calculate it in a precise way?
If you want to select the 1% largest numbers, then you have a few choices. If you have memory for the full set, you can sort. If you have room to keep 1% of the samples in memory, you need to do 100 passes. If you are willing to accept small errors, then you can do it in a single pass. These trade-offs are not optional, but are theorems.
