Binary heap representation

The binary heap is a data structure, in which the keys are store in an array such that each key is guaranteed to be larger than (or equal to) the keys at two other specific positions. In turn, each of those keys must be larger than (or equal to) two additional keys, and so forth. This ordering is easy to see if we view the keys as being in a binary tree structure with edges from each key to the two keys known to be smaller.