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Introduction To Data Structures

This document provides an introduction to data structures. It defines a data structure as an organized collection of data types that allows certain operations. Data structures can be simple, like arrays, which can then be used to build more complex structures. There are four main types of data structures: linear vs non-linear, homogenous vs non-homogenous, static vs dynamic, and direct access vs sequential access. Examples of different data structures that will be covered include arrays, which allow direct access to elements, and linked lists, which require sequential access.

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129 views1 page

Introduction To Data Structures

This document provides an introduction to data structures. It defines a data structure as an organized collection of data types that allows certain operations. Data structures can be simple, like arrays, which can then be used to build more complex structures. There are four main types of data structures: linear vs non-linear, homogenous vs non-homogenous, static vs dynamic, and direct access vs sequential access. Examples of different data structures that will be covered include arrays, which allow direct access to elements, and linked lists, which require sequential access.

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anilperfect
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Introduction to Data Structures

A data type is an instance of data that may be native to the language or defined by the user. And a
composition of data types, which forms some kind of systematic organization, is called Data
Structure.

Data structure = Organized data + Allowed operations

Simple Data structure can be used as building blocks of complex data structure.

Array is a simple type of Data structure by using which we can build more complex data structure.
Data structure can be classified according to the following four types.

1. Linear & Non-linear: The data stored in a sequence is called Linear, while the other is called
Non-linear e.g. Array is Linear & Tree is Non-linear.

2. Homogenous & Non-homogenous: The data structure, which contains single type of data, is
known as Homogenous whereas others are Non- homogenous. For example, Array is an ordered set
of homogenous elements stored in a contiguous memory location. And Record (structure) is a Non-
Homogenous.

3. Static & Dynamic: This means the allocation of memory, either Static or Dynamic.

4. Direct access & Sequential access: The ability of directly referring to an item without having access
to any other is called Direct access. Sequential access is searching through a number of items before
finding a specific item i.e. an item, which is not directly accessible. For example, arrays provide a
direct access to any element within the array by means of an index (direct access). But in linked lists,
we must traverse through the list to locate a specific node (sequential access).  Some of the data
structures, which will be discussed in detail later in the book, are given below.

Arrays This is a simplest type of linear data structure (one dimensional array), by


means of which a set of finite number say n of similar data elements can be referenced
by a set of n consecutive numbers 1, 2, 3, …….. n. For example, consider the following list
of elements:  5, 6, 8, 4, 3, 1, 2, 56, 67, 78 This list of 10 elements can be stored in an array
of size 10 as
follows:  

 
Note: Arrays will not be discussed hereafter in this book. It will be presumed that the
reader is familiar with arrays.

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