Book Image

Learning JavaScript Data Structures and Algorithms - Third Edition

Book Image

Learning JavaScript Data Structures and Algorithms - Third Edition

Overview of this book

A data structure is a particular way of organizing data in a computer to utilize resources efficiently. Data structures and algorithms are the base of every solution to any programming problem. With this book, you will learn to write complex and powerful code using the latest ES 2017 features. Learning JavaScript Data Structures and Algorithms begins by covering the basics of JavaScript and introduces you to ECMAScript 2017, before gradually moving on to the most important data structures such as arrays, queues, stacks, and linked lists. You will gain in-depth knowledge of how hash tables and set data structures function as well as how trees and hash maps can be used to search files in an HD or represent a database. This book serves as a route to take you deeper into JavaScript. You’ll also get a greater understanding of why and how graphs, one of the most complex data structures, are largely used in GPS navigation systems in social networks. Toward the end of the book, you’ll discover how all the theories presented in this book can be applied to solve real-world problems while working on your own computer networks and Facebook searches.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
Title Page
Dedication
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

Why should we use arrays?


Let's consider that we need to store the average temperature of each month of the year for the city that we live in. We could use something similar to the following to store this information:

const averageTempJan = 31.9; 
const averageTempFeb = 35.3; 
const averageTempMar = 42.4; 
const averageTempApr = 52; 
const averageTempMay = 60.8; 

However, this is not the best approach. If we store the temperature for only one year, we can manage 12 variables. However, what if we need to store the average temperature for more than one year? Fortunately, this is why arrays were created, and we can easily represent the same information mentioned earlier as follows:

const averageTemp = []; 
averageTemp[0] = 31.9; 
averageTemp[1] = 35.3; 
averageTemp[2] = 42.4; 
averageTemp[3] = 52; 
averageTemp[4] = 60.8; 

We can also represent the averageTemp array graphically: