INTRODUCTION TO DATA STRUCTURES AND ALGORITHMS

INTRODUCTION TO DATA STRUCTURES AND ALGORITHMS

Basic Data Structures and Abstract Data Types

Data Structures

Data structures are a particular way of organizing data in a computer to be used efficiently. It is the arrangement of data in memory locations to represent values of the carrier set of an abstract data type. It provides a means to manage large amounts of data for users, such as in large databases and internet indexing services. This is key to designing efficient algorithms.

Additionally, data structures are based on the ability of a computer to fetch and store data at any place in its memory, which is specified by a pointer - a bit string representing a memory address that can be stored in memory and manipulated by the program.