Define Data Structures
Data may be organized in many different ways. The logical or mathematical model of a particular organization of data is called a data structure.
CLASSIFICATION OF DATA STRUCTURES
Data structures are generally classified into
- Primitive data Structures
- Non-primitive data Structures
Primitive data Structures: Primitive data structures are the fundamental data types that are supported by a programming language. Basic data types such as integer, real, character, and Boolean are known as Primitive Data Structures. These data types consist of characters that cannot be divided and hence they are also called simple data types.
Non- Primitive data Structures: Non-primitive data structures are those data structures that are created using primitive data structures. Examples of non-primitive data structures is the processing of complex numbers, linked lists, stacks, trees, and graphs.
Based on the structure and arrangement of data, non-primitive data structures is further classified into
- Linear Data Structure
- Non-linear Data Structure
Linear Data Structure:
A data structure is said to be linear if its elements form a sequence or a linear list. There are basically two ways of representing such linear structure in memory. One way is to have the linear relationships between the elements represented by means of a sequential memory location. These linear structures are called arrays.
The other way is to have the linear relationship between the elements represented by means of pointers or links. These linear structures are called linked lists. The common examples of linear data structure are Arrays, Queues, Stacks, Linked lists
Non-linear Data Structure:
A data structure is said to be non-linear if the data are not arranged in sequence or linear. The insertion and deletion of data is not possible in linear fashion. This structure is mainly used to represent data containing a hierarchical relationship between elements. Trees and graphs are examples of non-linear data structures.