Understanding Data Structure concepts using pseudo codes and examples in Java

Data Structure as the name tells structure of keeping data in memory, in simple words Data Structure is a way to storing and organize data into memory, there are many different algorithms available that has their own benefits so as per the demand or requirement we choose any way to store data.

Some of Data Structures examples are Array, Linked List, Stack, Queue, tree etc.

Now days data structures are widely used in most in computer science example: Graphics design, Operating system design, compiler designing etc.

The different algorithms provide the efficient way to storing data, searching data that increase the performance.

Here I will try to explain data structure concept in very simple way with the help of pseudo codes that any computer science student or programmer can understand core concepts, for practical examples I will use Java language, I am sure after learning core concept you can write your own example in any programming language.

Advantage of Using Data Structure

In real life applications complexity increasing day by day so that storing high amount of data in memory and searching it on demand becoming nightmare.

1.

There could be billion files per entity and processor may fail to deal with high amount of data so that the Data Structure-algorithm increases the processing speed.

2.

An application can be used by multiple users and searching specific record in short time is not that easy for application so that Structure-algorithm is very much efficient to make the searching fast example: binary search, tree, hashtable etc.

3.

Data Structure is reusable that means once we implement the DS algorithm for our application compile into library file that we can use it with other client as well.

Types of Data Structure

Data Structure means how we will store and organize data in memory for that we can define DS in two types.

1.  Primitive

With any programming language we have some pre-defined data types or you can say data structures that will store our data values in memory.

Examples: Integer to store numeric values like int a=2,

          

Char to store char values like char a=’e’,

           

Float to store decimals value like float a=3.14,

         

Pointers that store the address of any other memory location.

2.  Non-Primitive

Non-primitive data structure is simply an object, objects are created but not predefined, with programming languages there are many primitive data structure that use to store and organize objects in memory like array,enum etc.

Non-Primitive Data Structures again divided into two different parts,

     

1.  Linear

Linear Data Structures organize data in sequential order example: Array, LinkedList, Stack, Queue.

2.  Non-Linear

Non-Linear Data Structure does not organize data in sequential order example: Tree, Graphs.

We will discuss Linear and Non-Linear Data Structures with examples in detail, please see the diagram given below to understand different types of Data Structure.

We will learn each topic one by one, you can go through with the link related to each topic given below. Before that let’s discuss about the Data Structure operations.

Operations Of Data Structure

Data Structure algorithm performs some operations on data stored in memory.

Insertion – Inserting data into data structure at last, end, 
             any position.

Deletion – Deleting data from last, end, any position from 
             data structure.

Traverse – Traversing means reading data from 
             data structure, searching, sorting operations 
             perform.

Merging – Merging two data structures of same type of 
            data, for example if we have one list A and 
            another list B of same type of data then 
            after merging we will have new list C.

      

Explore Data Structure By Topic Wise

Please click on the corresponding link and know more about each topic.

Understanding Stack In Data Structure

Understanding Queue In Data Structure