Editing Splay tree (section)

== Advantages ==

Good performance for a splay tree depends on the fact that it is self-optimizing, in that frequently accessed nodes will move nearer to the root where they can be accessed more quickly. The worst-case height—though unlikely—is O(''n''), with the average being O(log ''n'').
Having frequently-used nodes near the root is an advantage for many practical applications (also see [[locality of reference]]), and is particularly useful for implementing [[cache (computing)|cache]]s and [[Garbage collection (computer science)|garbage collection]] algorithms.

Advantages include:
* Comparable performance: Average-case performance is as efficient as other trees.<ref>{{harvnb|Goodrich|Tamassia|Goldwasser|2014}}.</ref>
* Small [[memory footprint]]: Splay trees do not need to store any bookkeeping data.