priority queue with limited space: looking for a good algorithm

Question

This is not a homework.

I\'m using a small \"priority queue\" (implemented as array at the moment) for storing last N items with smallest value. This is a b

Answer 1

If amount of priorities is small and fixed than you can use ring-buffer for each priority. That will lead to waste of the space if objects is big, but if their size is comparable with pointer/index than variants with storing additional pointers in objects may increase size of array in the same way.
Or you can use simple single-linked list inside array and store 2*M+1 pointers/indexes, one will point to first free node and other pairs will point to head and tail of each priority. In that cases you'll have to compare in avg. O(M) before taking out next node with O(1). And insertion will take O(1).