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Data Structure ○꠹｜Definition｜1st｜20261025155446-00-⌔

Data structure - Wikipedia

Data structure

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In computer science, a data structure is a way to organize and store data that is usually chosen for efficient access to data.123 More precisely, a data structure is the physical implementation of a data type, including specifications of the data organization and storage format, as well as functions or operations for working with this data. Data structures are closely related to abstract data types (ADTs).4 The data structure describes the representation of data in memory and how operations are carried out, while the ADT describes the logical form or algebraic structure of the data type—what operations are allowed and what results they produce—without describing how those operations are implemented.4 Some authors do not use the term “abstract data type” and simply refer to the logical and physical forms of the data structure.5

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Footnotes

  1. Cormen, Thomas H.; Leiserson, Charles E.; Rivest, Ronald L.; Stein, Clifford (2009). Introduction to Algorithms, Third Edition (3rd ed.). The MIT Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-0262033848. A data structure is a way to store and organize data in order to facilitate access and modifications. ↩

  2. Black, Paul E. (15 December 2004). “data structure”. In Pieterse, Vreda; Black, Paul E. (eds.). Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures[online]. National Institute of Standards and Technology. Retrieved 2018-11-06. An organization of information, usually in memory, for better algorithm efficiency, such as queue, stack, linked list, heap, dictionary, and tree, or conceptual unity, such as the name and address of a person. It may include redundant information, such as length of the list or number of nodes in a subtree. ↩

  3. “Data structure”. Encyclopaedia Britannica. 17 April 2017. Retrieved 2018-11-06. way in which data are stored for efficient search and retrieval ↩

  4. “1.2 Abstract Data Types”. Virginia Tech - CS3 Data Structures & Algorithms. Archived from the original on 2023-02-10. Retrieved 2023-02-15. ↩ ↩2

  5. Wegner, Peter; Reilly, Edwin D. (2003-08-29). Encyclopedia of Computer Science. Chichester, UK: John Wiley and Sons. pp. 507–512. ISBN 978-0470864128. ↩