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

Terminology


Let's consider some terms associated with trees.

To understand trees, we need to first understand the basic ideas on which they rest. The following figure contains a typical tree consisting of character nodes lettered A through to M.

Here is a list of terms associated with a Tree:

  • Node: Each circled alphabet represents a node. A node is any structure that holds data.
  • Root node: The root node is the only node from which all other nodes come. A tree with an undistinguishable root node cannot be considered as a tree. The root node in our tree is the node A.
  • Sub-tree: A sub-tree of a tree is a tree with its nodes being a descendant of some other tree. Nodes F, K, and L form a sub-tree of the original tree consisting of all the nodes.
  • Degree: The number of sub-trees of a given node. A tree consisting of only one node has a degree of 0. This one tree node is also considered as a tree by all standards. The degree of node A is 2.
  • Leaf node: This is a node with a degree of 0. Nodes J, E, K,...