Book Image

Hands-On Data Structures and Algorithms with Python - Second Edition

By : Dr. Basant Agarwal, Benjamin Baka
Book Image

Hands-On Data Structures and Algorithms with Python - Second Edition

By: Dr. Basant Agarwal, Benjamin Baka

Overview of this book

Data structures allow you to store and organize data efficiently. They are critical to any problem, provide a complete solution, and act like reusable code. Hands-On Data Structures and Algorithms with Python teaches you the essential Python data structures and the most common algorithms for building easy and maintainable applications. This book helps you to understand the power of linked lists, double linked lists, and circular linked lists. You will learn to create complex data structures, such as graphs, stacks, and queues. As you make your way through the chapters, you will explore the application of binary searches and binary search trees, along with learning common techniques and structures used in tasks such as preprocessing, modeling, and transforming data. In the concluding chapters, you will get to grips with organizing your code in a manageable, consistent, and extendable way. You will also study how to bubble sort, selection sort, insertion sort, and merge sort algorithms in detail. By the end of the book, you will have learned how to build components that are easy to understand, debug, and use in different applications. You will get insights into Python implementation of all the important and relevant algorithms.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)

Insertion sort algorithms

The idea of swapping adjacent elements to sort a list of items can also be used to implement the insertion sort. An insertion sorting algorithm maintains a sub-list that is always sorted, while the other portion of the list remains unsorted. We take elements from the unsorted sub-list and insert them in the correct position in the sorted sub-list, in such a way that this sub-list remains sorted.

In insertion sorting, we start with one element, assuming it to be sorted, and then take another element from the unsorted sub-list and place it at the correct position (in relation to the first element) in the sorted sub-list. This means that our sorted sub-list now has two elements. Then, we again take another element from the unsorted sub-list, and place it in the correct position (in relation to the two already sorted elements) in the sorted sub-list. We...