International Islamic University Chittagong

Department of Computer Science & Engineering

Autumn - 2022

Course Code: CSE-2321

Course Title: Data Structures

Mohammed Shamsul Alam

Professor, Dept. of CSE, IIUC
 Lecture – 1

Introduction & Overview

on Data Structures
 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:
34
09/06/1974
ISBN 81-203-0000-0
10, 20, 30, 40, 50
A data item refers to a single unit of values. Data items that are
divided into sub items are called group items; those that are not
are called elementary items. For example, a student’s name may
be divided into three sub items – first name, middle name and last
name – but the roll number of a student normally be treated as a
single item.

3
 Data

Collections of data are frequently organized into a hierarchy of

fields (attributes), records (entity) and files (entity set).

An entity is something that has certain attributes or properties

which may be assigned values. For example, an employee in an
organization is an entity. The possible attributes and the
corresponding values for an entity is given bellow:
Entity : EMPLOYEE
Attributes : NAME AGE SEX DESIGNATION
Values : Mr. X 30 M Director
Entities with similar attributes (e.g. all the employees in an
organization) constitute an entity set.

4
 Data
Each attribute of an entity set has a range of values, and is called
the domain of attribute. Domain is the set of all possible values
that could be assigned to the particular attribute. For example, in the
EMPLOYEE entity, the attribute SEX has domain as {M, F}.

Each record (entity) in a file (entity set) may contain many field
(attribute) items. But the value in a certain field may uniquely
determine the record in the file. Such a field K is called a primary
key, and the values k1, k2, … in such a field are called keys or key
values.

Example 1.1: Page-1.2 [Data Structures – Seymour Lipschutz]

5
 Information
The term information is used for data with its attribute(s). In
other words, information can be defined as meaningful data or
processed data. For example, 34 is a data but when we say
that 34 is the age of a person then it is information.

6
 Data type
A data type is a term which refers to the kind of data that may
appear in computation.
Built in data type: With every programming language, there is a
set of data types called built-in data types. For example, in C the
built in data types are int, float, char, double etc.
Abstract data type: When an application requires a special kind of
data which is not available as built-in data type then it is the
programmer’s burden to implement his own kind of data. This
programmers’ own data type is termed as abstract data type. It is
also known as user defined data type.
For example, we want to process dates of the form dd/mm/yy. For
this, no built in data type is known in C. If a programmer wants to
process dates, then an abstract data type, say Date, can be
implemented.
❑An abstract data type can be built with the help of built-in data types and
other abstract data type(s) already built by the programmer. In C/C++
programmers can define their own data types by using structure/class.

7
 Abstract Data Type (ADT)
Abstract Data type (ADT) is a type (or class) for objects whose
behavior is defined by a set of value and a set of operations.
The definition of ADT only mentions what operations are to be performed but
not how these operations will be implemented. It does not specify how data
will be organized in memory and what algorithms will be used for
implementing the operations. It is called “abstract” because it gives an
implementation-independent view. The process of providing only the
essentials and hiding the details is known as abstraction.

8
 Data structure
Data may be organized in many different ways. The logical or
mathematical model of a particular organization of data is called a
data structure.

The choice of a particular data model depends on two

considerations.
❑ It must be rich enough in structure to mirror the actual
relationships of the data in the real world.
❑ The structure should be simple enough that one can effectively
process the data when necessary.

9
 Classification of Data Structures
All the data structured can be 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 structures.

10
 Array
An array is a finite, ordered and collection of homogeneous data
elements. Following are some examples:
– An array of integers to store the age of all students in a class.
– An array of strings to store the name of all students in a class.
There are two types of array: one-dimensional array and
multi-dimensional array.
By an one-dimensional (or linear) array, we mean a list of a finite
number n of similar data elements referenced respectively by a set
of n consecutive numbers, usually 1, 2, 3, …, n.
If A is the name of an 1D array, then the elements of A are denoted
by A[1], A[2], …, A[N].
The number K in A[K] is called a subscript and A[K] is called a
subscripted variable.
We will discuss about multidimensional arrays later on.

11
 Linked list
A linked list is an ordered collection of finite, homogeneous data
elements, called nodes, where the linear order is maintained by
means of links or pointers.
In linked list, each node is divided into two parts: the first part
contains the information of the element, and the second part, called
the link field or next pointer field, contains the address of the next
node in the list.
There is a special pointer START contains the address of first node
in the list. The pointer of the last node contains a special value,
called null pointer.
The following Fig shows a schematic diagram of a linked list with five nodes.

12
 Stack & Queue
A stack, also called a last-in first-out (LIFO) system, is an ordered
collection of homogeneous data elements where insertion and deletion
operations take place only at one end, called the top. This structure is
similar in its operation to a stack of dishes on a spring system, as shown in
Fig (a).
A queue, also called a first-in first-out (FIFO) system, is an ordered
collection of homogeneous data elements where deletion operations can
take place only at one end of the list, the “front“ of the list, and insertion
operations can take place only at the other end of the list, the “rear” of the
list. This structure operates in much the same way as a line of people
waiting at a bus stop, as shown in Fig. (b).

13
 Tree
Data frequently contain a hierarchical relationship between various
elements. The data structure, which reflects this relationship, is
called a tree. Fig. 1-7 shows an example of tree.

14
 Graph
Data sometimes contain a relationship between pairs of elements,
which is not necessarily hierarchical in nature. For example,
suppose, an airline flies only between the cities connected by the
lines in Fig. The data structure, which reflects this type of
relationship, is called a graph.

15
 Data Structure Operations
Traversing: Processing each element in the list
Search: Finding the location of the element with a given value
or the record with a given key.
Insertion: Adding a new element to the list.
Deletion: Removing an element from the list.
Sorting: Arranging the elements in some type of order.
Merging: Combining two sorted lists into a single list.

16
 Complexity of an Algorithm
An algorithm is a finite step-by-step list of well-defined instructions
for solving a particular problem. The time and space it uses are two
major measurers of the efficiency of an algorithm.
The complexity of an algorithm M is a function f(n) which gives the
running time and/or storage space requirement of the algorithm in
terms of the size n of the input data.
❑ Frequently, the storage space required by an algorithm is a simply a
multiple of the data size n. Accordingly, the term “complexity“
generally refers to the running time of the algorithm.

Searching Algorithms
– Linear Search:
– Binary Search:

17
 Time-Space Tradeoff of Algorithms

The time-space tradeoff refers to a choice between algorithmic

solutions of a data processing problem that allows one to decrease
the running time of an algorithmic solution by increasing the space
to store the data and vice-versa.

18
 Home Task
• Problem: Write a C/C++ program to
create an array of n elements and then
display all the elements of the list.

19