Book Image

Python Data Structures and Algorithms

By : Benjamin Baka
Book Image

Python Data Structures and Algorithms

By: Benjamin Baka

Overview of this book

Data structures allow you to organize data in a particular way efficiently. They are critical to any problem, provide a complete solution, and act like reusable code. In this book, you will learn the essential Python data structures and the most common algorithms. With this easy-to-read book, you will be able to understand the power of linked lists, double linked lists, and circular linked lists. You will be able to create complex data structures such as graphs, stacks and queues. We will explore the application of binary searches and binary search trees. You will learn the common techniques and structures used in tasks such as preprocessing, modeling, and transforming data. We will also discuss how to organize your code in a manageable, consistent, and extendable way. The book will explore in detail sorting algorithms such as bubble sort, selection sort, insertion sort, and merge sort. By the end of the book, you will learn how to build components that are easy to understand, debug, and use in different applications.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface
5
Stacks and Queues
7
Hashing and Symbol Tables

Arrays


An array is a sequential list of data. Being sequential means that each element is stored right after the previous one in memory. If your array is really big and you are low on memory, it could be impossible to find large enough storage to fit your entire array. This will lead to problems.

Of course, the flip side of the coin is that arrays are very fast. Since each element follows from the previous one in memory, there is no need to jump around between different memory locations. This can be a very important point to take into consideration when choosing between a list and an array in your own real-world applications.

In the latter parts of Chapter 2, Python Data Types and Structures, we looked at the array data type and discovered the various operations that could be performed on it.