Coimbatore-21.

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
Department of Computer Science and
Engineering

Basics of Data structure

1. Abstract data type
Abstract data type is a data type in which the members of the data type are unknown to
the user. Abstraction refers to defining new types and hiding the details of implementation.
2. Data structure
A data structure is a way of organizing data that considers not only the items stored, but
also their relationship to each other. Advance knowledge about the relationship between data
items allows designing of efficient algorithms for the manipulation of data.
3. Algorithm
Algorithm is used to understand the complexity of algorithms. An algorithm is a clearly
specified set of simple instructions to be followed to solve a problem.

4. Stack
A stack is an abstract data type in which all the operations will be take place in one point
called top. It works in a principle of LIFO (Last in first out).
5. Queue
A queue is an abstract data type in which insertion will take place in front and deletion
will take place in rear. It works in a principle of FIFO (First in first out).
6. List
A list is an ordered collection of elements.
7. Types of list
The types are
Singly linked list
Doubly linked list
Circular linked list
8. Heap
A heap is a specialized tree-based data structure that satisfies the heap property: If A is a
parent node of B then the key of node A is ordered with respect to the key of node B with the
same ordering applying across the heap.
9. Binary tree
A binary tree is a tree data structure in which each node has at most two child nodes
10. Binary search tree

A binary search tree (BST), sometimes also called an ordered or sorted binary tree, is a nodebased binary tree data structure which has the following properties:[1]
The left subtree of a node contains only nodes with keys less than the node's key.
The right subtree of a node contains only nodes with keys greater than the node's key.
The left and right subtree each must also be a binary search tree.
There must be no duplicate nodes.
11. Expression tree
An expression tree is a binary tree in which it consists of operands and operators. The leaf
node contains operands and interior nodes contain operators
12. Singly linked list
Singly linked list is a list in which it stores the contents of the node and a pointer or
reference to the next node in the list.
13. Doubly linked list
A doubly-linked list is a list data structure that consists of a set of sequentially
linked records called nodes. Each node contains two fields, called links, that are references to the
previous and to the next node in the sequence of nodes.
14. Circular linked list
A circular linked list is a linked list in which the head element's previous pointer points to
the tail element and the tail element's next pointer points to the head element. In the special case
of a circular list with only one element, the element's previous and next pointers point to itself,
and it is both the head and tail of the list.
15. Circular queue
Circular queues are particular implementations of queues. These queues are
made of an array that contains the items in the queue, an optional length and two array
indexes. The indexes are referred to as the tail and head pointers.
16. Tree
A tree is a collection of nodes. A node can be empty or it can have a distinguished node
called root or one or more non empty sub trees.
17. Almost complete binary tree
An almost complete binary tree is a tree in which each node that has a right child also has
a left child. Having a left child does not require a node to have a right child.
18. Complete binary tree
A complete binary tree is a binary tree in which every level, except possibly the last, is
completely filled, and all nodes are as far left as possible
19. Strictly binary tree
When every non-leaf node in binary tree is filled with left and right sub-trees, the tree is
called strictly binary tree.
20. AVL

An AVL tree (Adelson-Velskii and Landis' tree, named after the inventors) is a selfbalancing binary search tree, and it was the first such data structure.
21. Spanning Tree
A spanning tree is a tree associated with a network. All the nodes of the graph appear on
the tree once. A minimum spanning tree is a spanning tree organized so that the total edge weight
between nodes is minimized.
22. Priority queues
A priority queue is a collection of elements such that each element has been assigned a
priority.
23. Limitations of arrays?
i)Arrays are of fixed size.
ii)Data elements are stored in continuous memory locations which may not be available
always.
iii)Adding and removing of elements is problematic because of shifting the locations.
24. Overcoming the limitations of arrays
Limitations of arrays can be solved by using the linked list.
25. Linked list
Linked list is a data structure which store same kind of data elements but not in
continuous memory locations and size is not fixed. The linked lists are related logically.
26. Node
The data element of a linked list is called a node. Node consists of two fields: data field
to store the element and link field to store the address of the next node.
27. Divide and conquer
The basic idea is to divide the problem into several sub problems beyond which cannot
be further subdivided. Then solve the sub problems efficiently and join then together to get the
solution for the main problem.
28. Leaf
In a directed tree any node which has out degree o is called a terminal node or a leaf.
29. Tree traversal
Tree traversal (also known as tree search) refers to the process of visiting (examining
and/or updating) each node in a tree data structure, exactly once, in a systematic way.
30. Types of traversing
The different types of traversing are
i)Pre-order traversal-yields prefix from of expression.
ii)In-order traversal-yields infix form of expression.
iii)Post-order traversal-yields postfix from of expression.

31. Pre-order traversal

i)Process the root node
ii)Process the left subtree
iii)Process the right subtree
32. Post-order traversal
i)Process the left subtree
ii)Process the right subtree
iii)Process the root node
33. In -order traversal?
i)Process the left subtree
ii)Process the root node
iii)Process the right subtree
34. Sorting
Ordering the data in an increasing or decreasing fashion according to some relationship
among the data item is called sorting.
35. De-queue
De-queue stands for double ended queue. It is a abstract data structure that implements a
queue for which elements can be added to front or rear and the elements can be removed from
the rear or front. It is also called head-tail linked list
36. Infix expression
Operators are written in-between their operands. Example: A * ( B + C ) / D
37. Prefix expression
Operators are written before their operands. The expressions given above are equivalent
to / * A + B C D
38. Postfix expression
Operators are written after their operands. The infix expression given above is equivalent
to A B C + * D /
39. Overflow and underflow
When new data is to be inserted into the data structure but there is no available space
i.e.free storage list is empty this situation is called overflow. When we want to delete data from a
data structure that is empty this situation is called underflow.
40. Differentiate between PUSH and POP
- Pushing and popping refers to the way data is stored into and retrieved from a stack.
- PUSH Data being pushed/ added to the stack.
- POP - Data being retrieved from the stack, particularly the topmost data.
41. Graph
A graph is a combination of vertices and edges. G=(V,E). The nodes are referred as nodes
and arcs between nodes are referred as edges.

42. Graph traversal

Graph traversal refers to the process of visiting each node in a tree data structure, exactly
once, in a systematic way.
43. Breadth first search
Visit the nodes at level i before the nodes of level i+1.
44. Depth first search
Depth-first search (DFS) is an algorithm for traversing or searching tree or graph data
structures. One starts at the root (selecting some node as the root in the graph case) and explores
as far as possible along each branch before backtracking.
45. Bi-connectivity
A bi-connected graph is a connected and "non-separable" graph, meaning that if
any vertex were to be removed, the graph will remain connected. Therefore a bi-connected graph
has no articulation vertices.