Book Image

Hands-On Data Structures and Algorithms with Kotlin

By : Chandra Sekhar Nayak, Rivu Chakraborty
Book Image

Hands-On Data Structures and Algorithms with Kotlin

By: Chandra Sekhar Nayak, Rivu Chakraborty

Overview of this book

Data structures and algorithms are more than just theoretical concepts. They help you become familiar with computational methods for solving problems and writing logical code. Equipped with this knowledge, you can write efficient programs that run faster and use less memory. Hands-On Data Structures and Algorithms with Kotlin book starts with the basics of algorithms and data structures, helping you get to grips with the fundamentals and measure complexity. You'll then move on to exploring the basics of functional programming while getting used to thinking recursively. Packed with plenty of examples along the way, this book will help you grasp each concept easily. In addition to this, you'll get a clear understanding of how the data structures in Kotlin's collection framework work internally. By the end of this book, you will be able to apply the theory of data structures and algorithms to work out real-world problems.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Section 1: Getting Started with Data Structures
4
Section 2: Efficient Grouping of Data with Various Data Structures
8
Section 3: Algorithms and Efficiency
11
Section 4: Modern and Advanced Data Structures
15
Assessments

The beauty of immutable arrays

Immutability is one of the key principles of modern programming languages. So, it's obvious that Kotlin also has immutability implementation. Because of this, Kotlin's collections package has treated immutable data structures as first-class citizens. A few examples might make you understand this more:

val days = listOf("Sunday", "Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday")
val months = arrayListOf("January", "February", "March", "April")

In the preceding snippet, days is an immutable list whereas months is a mutable one. For example, months.add("May") is a valid statement whereas we cannot add an item to the days list. The only way to do so is to get a new list out of the existing one by adding the new item. Here's the method:

val modifiedDays = days + &quot...