XLtrie

An implementation of using the x-fast trie for fast predecessor search. Illustrated with an example of the problem of searching for the closest movie release meeting some arbitrary condition.

The X-movies example.

Rather than getting all theoretical, let us start with a simple and illustrative example. With movie and tv show titles such as X-files, X-men and American History X, we have a trope of X standing for anything misterious (and heavily implied to be hip). How often are movies with such titles released? What was the first X-movie released since your birth?

To find out, let us build the X-fast trie index for such X-titled movies by the year of release.

Here is a plot of what we get: