Data Structures

Do you know the volume of data that is available on the internet? Its hard to lay down a figure.But here’s a fun fact :

Every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data !!!!

What if this data isn’t organised?Imagine the sheer amount of work you would have to put in to  process all this data to get the required information.Yeah it will take you a number of years to get  a single operation done.Now what if you had a way to organise all this data?Give it a structure ?Wouldn’t that cut down your effort by a considerable amount?That is what data structures are for.Data structures are a way to organise your data in a particular way so that your computer can process your information efficiently.Instead of storing 10 similar values in 10 different variables you can store your data in a single variable itself.

Let’s look at some examples of data structures:

• Array : This structures allows you to store similar values in one variable.The length is fixed at the time of declaration.
• Lists: Here they contain data and addresses where the data is stored.These are referred to as linked lists.
• Queues:They work on the principle of first in first out.
• Stacks:They are literally data stacked upon each other where the last value entered is accessed first
• Trees:A hierarchical structure used to store data.
• Graphs:A set of nodes that are connected to each other

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