Book Image

Everyday Data Structures

By : William Smith
Book Image

Everyday Data Structures

By: William Smith

Overview of this book

Explore a new world of data structures and their applications easily with this data structures book. Written by software expert William Smith, you?ll learn how to master basic and advanced data structure concepts. ? Fully understand data structures using Java, C and other common languages ? Work through practical examples and learn real-world applications ? Get to grips with data structure problem solving using case studies
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Everyday Data Structures
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
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Preface
Free Chapter
1
Data Types: Foundational Structures

Summary


In this chapter, you learned the basic definition of an array structure, how arrays look in memory, and how each of the four languages we are discussing implement some form of the plain C array structure. Next, we discussed the difference between mutable and immutable arrays. Using examples, we looked at how each of the four languages we are discussing implements arrays and array functionality. In the remainder of the chapter, we examined the linear search algorithm and introduced the big O notation, including how this notation is applied to arrays with examples of simple iteration. We discussed the difference between primitive arrays, object arrays, and mixed arrays. Finally, we examined multidimensional arrays and their counterpart, jagged arrays.

As a final note, it is important to know when to use an array. Arrays are great for containing small lists of constant data or data that changes very little to not at all. If you find yourself constantly manipulating the data in your array...