Data Structures Using C, 2nd Edition by Pearson

Data Structures and Algorithms: An Introduction 73

n Ease of retrieval: The data should be stored in such a manner that the program can easily access it.

As an array is an index–value pair, a data item stored in the array (see Figure 2.2) can be very

easily accessed through its index. For example, List [5] will provide the data item stored at 5th

location, i.e. ‘2’. From this point of view, the array is a random-access structure.

n Operations allowed: The operations needed to be performed on the data must be allowed by the

representation.

For example, component by component operations can be done on the data items stored in the

array