delta-list

Data structure that maps an integer list to a list of relative integer deltas

npm install delta-list

Usage

var delta = require('delta-list')
 
var deltas = delta.pack([1, 2, 3, 4, 5])
console.log(deltas) // prints [1, 1, 1, 1, 1]
 
var abs = delta.unpack(deltas)
console.log(abs) // prints [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

API

array = delta.pack(list, [resultList])

Map a list of integers to a list of relative deltas. Optionally you can pass in a list to store the deltas in.

array = delta.unpack(list, [resultList])

Map a list of relative deltas to a list of integers. Optionally you can pass in a list to store the integers in.

When is this useful?

If you have a sorted list of integers and you want to transmit then over a network it can be useful to only send the deltas and the resulting integers will be smaller meaning you'll need fewer bytes to encode them.

License

MIT