Data Structures and Algorithms
with Object-Oriented Design Patterns in Java 
In this section we consider finite sets over a finite universe.
Specifically, the universe we consider is 
,
the set of integers in the range from zero to N-1,
for some fixed and relatively small value of N.
Let 
be the universe.
Every set which we wish to represent is a subset of U.
The set of all subsets of U is called the power set
of U and is written 
.
Thus, the sets which we wish to represent are the elements of .
The number of elements in the set U, written |U|, is N.
Similarly, 
.
This observation should be obvious:
For each element of the universal set U there are only two possibilities:
Either it is, or it is not,
a member of the given set.
This suggests a relatively straightforward
representation of the elements of --an array of boolean values, one for each element of the universal set.
By using array subscripts in U,
we can represent the set implicitly.
That is, i is a member of the set if the 
array element is true.
Program 
introduces the class SetAsArray.
The SetAsArray class extends the AbstractSet class
defined in Program .
This class uses an array of length 
to represent the elements of where .
Copyright © 1998 by Bruno R. Preiss, P.Eng. All rights reserved.
