Chapter Three. Elementary Data Structures

Organizing the data for processing is an essential step in the development of a computer program. For many applications, the choice of the proper data structure is the only major decision involved in the implementation: once the choice has been made, the necessary algorithms are simple. For the same data, some data structures require more or less space than others; for the same operations on the data, some data structures lead to more or less efficient algorithms than others. The choices of algorithm and of data structure are closely intertwined, and we continually seek ways to save time or space by making the choice properly.

A data structure is not a passive entity: We also must consider the operations ...

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