Introduction To Data Structure

Introduction To Data Structure
Computing is all about handling data. And that data needs to be organized in a logical manner for the task in hand.
The tool that are used for store the data into computer very significant manner also retrieve this stored data very fast is data structure, so data structures helps in data operations like storing data and searching data.
Data Structure
A data structure is a particular way of storing and organizing data in a computer so that it can be used efficiently. Data structures provide a means to manage huge amount of data efficiently, such as large databases and internet indexing services.
Data
Data means value or set of values. In both the singular and plural form, this term is data. Following are some examples of data.
1- 34
2- 26/8/2013
3- IsBN81-203-0000-0
4- | | |
5- Pascal
6- AE
7- 21, 25, 28, 30

Information
Information is symbolic representation. It has some useful meaning that helps us in making good judgments. In other words, information can be defined as meaningful data or processed data. All data term become information if impose the meaning as mentioned below related to a person:



Meaning Data
Age of the person 34
Date of birth of the person 26/8/2013
Book number, recently Published by the person IsBN81-203-0000-0
Number of a wards achieved by the person in tally mark | | |
Nick name of the person Pascal
Signature of the person AE
Important ages of the person 21, 25, 28, 30


Data Type
A data type is a term which refers to the kind of data that may appear in computation. Following are a few well-known data types.

Data Type Data
Numeric(integer) 34
Date 26/8/2013
Alphanumeric IsBN81-203-0000-0
Graphics | | |
String Pascal
Image AE
Array of integers 21, 25, 28, 30


What does organizing the data mean??
It means that the data should be arranged in a way that it is easily accessible. The data is inside the computer and we want to see it. We may also perform some calculations on it. Suppose the data contains some numbers and the programmer wants to calculate the average, standard deviation. May be have a list of names and want to search a particular name in it. To solve such problems, data structures and algorithm are used.






Algorithms and Program with Data Structure
Algorithms are used to manipulate the data contained in these data structures as in searching and sorting.
Algorithm is a finite sequence of instructions, each of which has a clear meaning and can be performed with a finite amount of effort in a finite length of time. An integer assignment statement such as x:=y+z is an example of an instruction that can be executed in a finite amount of effort.
Program is an instantiation of an algorithm in a computer programming language.
We must distinguish between the algorithm and the program. To write the program, there is some condition must be applied that depend on the programming language that used but in algorithm there is no a specific programming rules must applied except the standard form of the algorithm.

The algorithm must have the following form:

Algorithm : the name of algorithm
Inputs : write here the inputs of algorithm.
Outputs : the outputs of algorithm.
Begin
{
The body of algorithm (the solution)
}
End













Types Of Data Structure


Data structure



Linear data structure Non-linear data structure



Array Stack Queue List Trees graphs


Data structures are classified into two main classes: linear data structures and non-linear data structures. In case of linear data structures, all the elements form a sequence or maintain a linear ordering. On the other hand, no such sequence in elements, rather all the elements are distributed over a plane in case of non-linear data structure.

How to choose the suitable data structure
For each set of data there are different methods to organize these data in a particular data structure. To choose the suitable data structure, we must use the following criteria.
1- Data size and the required memory.
2- The required time to obtain any data element from the data structure.
3- The programming approach and the algorithm that will be used to manipulate the data.