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)

Stacks

A stack is a data structure that stores data, similar to a stack of plates in a kitchen. You can put a plate on the top of the stack, and when you need a plate, you take it from the top of the stack. The last plate that was added to the stack will be the first to be picked up from the stack. Similarly, a stack data structure allows us to store and read data from one end, and the element which is added last is picked up first. Thus, a stack is a last in, first out (LIFO) structure:

The preceding diagram depicts a stack of plates. Adding a plate to the pile is only possible by leaving that plate on top of the pile. To remove a plate from the pile of plates means to remove the plate that is on top of the pile.

There are two primary operations that are performed on stacks—push and pop. When an element is added to the top of the stack, it is pushed onto the stack. When...