MODULE Data Structure and Algorithms – CC04

CHAPTER 1: DATA STRUCTURE

AND ALGORITHMS

OBJECTIVE: To solve the above-mentioned problems, data structures

come to rescue. Data can be organized in a data structure in such a way
that all items may not be required to be searched, and the required data
can be searched almost instantly.

Why to Learn Data Structure and Algorithms?

As applications are getting complex and data rich, there are three common
problems that applications face now-a-days.

• Data Search − Consider an inventory of 1 million(106) items of a store.

If the application is to search an item, it has to search an item in 1
million(106) items every time slowing down the search. As data grows,
search will become slower.
• Processor speed − Processor speed although being very high, falls
limited if the data grows to billion records.
• Multiple requests − As thousands of users can search data
simultaneously on a web server, even the fast server fails while
searching the data.

1
MODULE Data Structure and Algorithms – CC04

Applications of Data Structure and Algorithms

Algorithm is a step-by-step procedure, which defines a set of instructions to
be executed in a certain order to get the desired output. Algorithms are
generally created independent of underlying languages, i.e. an algorithm can
be implemented in more than one programming language.
From the data structure point of view, following are some important
categories of algorithms −
• Search − Algorithm to search an item in a data structure.
• Sort − Algorithm to sort items in a certain order.
• Insert − Algorithm to insert item in a data structure.
• Update − Algorithm to update an existing item in a data structure.
• Delete − Algorithm to delete an existing item from a data structure.
The following computer problems can be solved using Data Structures −

• Fibonacci number series

• Knapsack problem
• Tower of Hanoi
• All pair shortest path by Floyd-Warshall
• Shortest path by Dijkstra
• Project scheduling

Audience
This tutorial is designed for Computer Science graduates as well as Software
Professionals who are willing to learn data structures and algorithm
programming in simple and easy steps.
After completing this tutorial you will be at intermediate level of expertise from
where you can take yourself to higher level of expertise.
2
MODULE Data Structure and Algorithms – CC04

Prerequisites
Before proceeding with this tutorial, you should have a basic understanding
of C programming language, text editor, and execution of programs, etc.

Data Structure is a systematic way to organize data in order to use it

efficiently. Following terms are the foundation terms of a data structure.
• Interface − Each data structure has an interface. Interface represents
the set of operations that a data structure supports. An interface only
provides the list of supported operations, type of parameters they can
accept and return type of these operations.
• Implementation − Implementation provides the internal representation
of a data structure. Implementation also provides the definition of the
algorithms used in the operations of the data structure.

Characteristics of a Data Structure

• Correctness − Data structure implementation should implement its
interface correctly.
• Time Complexity − Running time or the execution time of operations of
data structure must be as small as possible.
• Space Complexity − Memory usage of a data structure operation
should be as little as possible.

Need for Data Structure

As applications are getting complex and data rich, there are three common
problems that applications face now-a-days.
• Data Search − Consider an inventory of 1 million(106) items of a store.
If the application is to search an item, it has to search an item in 1
million(106) items every time slowing down the search. As data grows,
search will become slower.
• Processor speed − Processor speed although being very high, falls
limited if the data grows to billion records.

3
MODULE Data Structure and Algorithms – CC04

• Multiple requests − As thousands of users can search data

simultaneously on a web server, even the fast server fails while
searching the data.
To solve the above-mentioned problems, data structures come to rescue.
Data can be organized in a data structure in such a way that all items may
not be required to be searched, and the required data can be searched
almost instantly.

Execution Time Cases

There are three cases which are usually used to compare various data
structure's execution time in a relative manner.
• Worst Case − This is the scenario where a particular data structure
operation takes maximum time it can take. If an operation's worst case
time is ƒ(n) then this operation will not take more than ƒ(n) time where
ƒ(n) represents function of n.
• Average Case − This is the scenario depicting the average execution
time of an operation of a data structure. If an operation takes ƒ(n) time
in execution, then m operations will take mƒ(n) time.
• Best Case − This is the scenario depicting the least possible execution
time of an operation of a data structure. If an operation takes ƒ(n) time
in execution, then the actual operation may take time as the random
number which would be maximum as ƒ(n).

Basic Terminology
• Data − Data are values or set of values.
• Data Item − Data item refers to single unit of values.
• Group Items − Data items that are divided into sub items are called as
Group Items.
• Elementary Items − Data items that cannot be divided are called as
Elementary Items.
• Attribute and Entity − An entity is that which contains certain attributes
or properties, which may be assigned values.
• Entity Set − Entities of similar attributes form an entity set.
4
MODULE Data Structure and Algorithms – CC04

• Field − Field is a single elementary unit of information representing an

attribute of an entity.
• Record − Record is a collection of field values of a given entity.
• File − File is a collection of records of the entities in a given entity set.

Local Environment Setup

If you are still willing to set up your environment for C programming language,
you need the following two tools available on your computer, (a) Text Editor
and (b) The C Compiler.
Text Editor
This will be used to type your program. Examples of few editors include
Windows Notepad, OS Edit command, Brief, Epsilon, EMACS, and vim or vi.
The name and the version of the text editor can vary on different operating
systems. For example, Notepad will be used on Windows, and vim or vi can
be used on Windows as well as Linux or UNIX.
The files you create with your editor are called source files and contain
program source code. The source files for C programs are typically named
with the extension ".c".
Before starting your programming, make sure you have one text editor in
place and you have enough experience to write a computer program, save it
in a file, compile it, and finally execute it.
The C Compiler
The source code written in the source file is the human readable source for
your program. It needs to be "compiled", to turn into machine language so
that your CPU can actually execute the program as per the given instructions.
This C programming language compiler will be used to compile your source
code into a final executable program. We assume you have the basic
knowledge about a programming language compiler.
Most frequently used and free available compiler is GNU C/C++ compiler.
Otherwise, you can have compilers either from HP or Solaris if you have
respective Operating Systems (OS).

5
MODULE Data Structure and Algorithms – CC04

The following section guides you on how to install GNU C/C++ compiler on
various OS. We are mentioning C/C++ together because GNU GCC compiler
works for both C and C++ programming languages.

Installation on UNIX/Linux
If you are using Linux or UNIX, then check whether GCC is installed on your
system by entering the following command from the command line −
$ gcc -v
If you have GNU compiler installed on your machine, then it should print a
message such as the following −
Using built-in specs.
Target: i386-redhat-linux
Configured with: ../configure --prefix = /usr .......
Thread model: posix
gcc version 4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-46)
If GCC is not installed, then you will have to install it yourself using the
detailed instructions available at https://gcc.gnu.org/install/
This tutorial has been written based on Linux and all the given examples
have been compiled on Cent OS flavor of Linux system.

Installation on Mac OS
If you use Mac OS X, the easiest way to obtain GCC is to download the
Xcode development environment from Apple's website and follow the simple
installation instructions. Once you have Xcode setup, you will be able to use
GNU compiler for C/C++.
Xcode is currently available at developer.apple.com/technologies/tools/

Installation on Windows
To install GCC on Windows, you need to install MinGW. To install MinGW, go
to the MinGW homepage, www.mingw.org, and follow the link to the MinGW
download page. Download the latest version of the MinGW installation
program, which should be named MinGW-<version>.exe.

6
MODULE Data Structure and Algorithms – CC04

While installing MinWG, at a minimum, you must install gcc-core, gcc-g++,

binutils, and the MinGW runtime, but you may wish to install more.
Add the bin subdirectory of your MinGW installation to
your PATH environment variable, so that you can specify these tools on the
command line by their simple names.
When the installation is complete, you will be able to run gcc, g++, ar, ranlib,
dlltool, and several other GNU tools from the Windows command line.

For more knowledge about this topic, please check the link provided

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RLhuZ3N9nc