UNIT-1

1.1 BASIC TERMINOLOGY: ELEMENTARY DATA ORGANIZATION

1.1.1 Data and Data Item
Data are simply collection of facts and figures. Data are values or set of values. A data item refers to a
single unit of values. Data items that are divided into sub items are group items; those that are not are
called elementary items. For example, a student’s name may be divided into three sub items – [first name,
middle name and last name] but the ID of a student would normally be treated as a single item.
In the above example ( ID, Age, Gender, First, Middle, Last, Street, Area ) are elementary data items,

whereas (Name, Address ) are group data items.

1.1.2 Data Type

Data type is a classification identifying one of various types of data, such as floating-point, integer, or
Boolean, that determines the possible values for that type; the operations that can be done on values of that
type; and the way values of that type can be stored. It is of two types: Primitive and non-primitive data
type. Primitive data type is the basic data type that is provided by the programming language with built-in
support. This data type is native to the language and is supported by machine directly while non-primitive
data type is derived from primitive data type. For example- array, structure etc.

1.1.3 Variable
It is a symbolic name given to some known or unknown quantity or information, for the purpose of
allowing the name to be used independently of the information it represents. A variable name in computer
source code is usually associated with a data storage location and thus also its contents and these may
change during the course of program execution.

1.1.4 Record
Collection of related data items is known as record. The elements of records are usually called fields or
members. Records are distinguished from arrays by the fact that their number of fields is typically fixed,
each field has a name, and that each field may have a different type.
1.1.5 Program
A sequence of instructions that a computer can interpret and execute is termed as program.

1.1.6 Entity
An entity is something that has certain attributes or properties which may be assigned some values. The
values themselves may be either numeric or non-numeric.
Example:

1.1.7 Entity Set

An entity set is a group of or set of similar entities. For example, employees of an organization, students
of a class etc. Each attribute of an entity set has a range of values, the set of all possible values that could
be assigned to the particular attribute. The term “information” is sometimes used for data with given
attributes, of, in other words meaningful or processed data.

1.1.8 Field
A field is a single elementary unit of information representing an attribute of an entity, a record is the
collection of field values of a given entity and a file is the collection of records of the entities in a given
entity set.

1.1.9 File
File is a collection of records of the entities in a given entity set. For example, file containing records of
students of a particular class.

1.1.10 Key
A key is one or more field(s) in a record that take(s) unique values and can be used to distinguish one
record from the others.

1.2 ALGORITHM
A well-defined computational procedure that takes some value, or a set of values, as input and produces
some value, or a set of values, as output. It can also be defined as sequence of computational steps that
transform the input into the output.

An algorithm can be expressed in three ways:-

(i) in any natural language such as English, called pseudo code.
(ii) in a programming language or
(iii) in the form of a flowchart.

1.3 EFFICIENCY OF AN ALGORITHM

In computer science, algorithmic efficiency are the properties of an algorithm which relate to the amount
of resources used by the algorithm. An algorithm must be analyzed to determine its
 resource usage. Algorithmic efficiency can be thought of as analogous to engineering
productivity for a repeating or continuous process.
For maximum efficiency we wish to minimize resource usage. However, the various resources
(e.g. time, space) can not be compared directly, so which of two algorithms is considered to be
more efficient often depends on which measure of efficiency is being considered as the most
important, e.g. is the requirement for high speed, or for minimum memory usage, or for some
other measure. It can be of various types:
 Worst case efficiency: It is the maximum number of steps that an algorithm can take for
any collection of data values.
 Best case efficiency: It is the minimum number of steps that an algorithm can take any
collection of data values.
 Average case efficiency: It can be defined as
- the efficiency averaged on all possible inputs
- must assume a distribution of the input
- We normally assume uniform distribution (all keys are equally probable) If the input
has size n, efficiency will be a function of n

1.4 TIME AND SPACE COMPLEXITY

Complexity of algorithm is a function of size of input of a given problem instance which
determines how much running time/memory space is needed by the algorithm in order to run to
completion.
Time Complexity: Time complexity of an algorithm is the amount of time it needs in order to
run to completion.
Space Complexity: Space Complexity of an algorithm is the amount of space it needs in order to
run to completion.
There are two points which we should consider about computer programming:-
(i) An appropriate data structure and
(ii) An appropriate algorithm.

1.5 ABSTRACT DATA TYPE

It can be defined as a collection of data items together with the operations on the data. The word
“abstract” refers to the fact that the data and the basic operations defined on it are being studied
independently of how they are implemented. It involves what can be done with the data, not
how has to be done. For ex, in the below figure the user would be involved in checking that what
can be done with the data collected not how it has to be done.

An implementation of ADT consists of storage structures to store the data items and algorithms
for basic operation. All the data structures i.e. array, linked list, stack, queue etc are examples of
ADT.
1.6 DATA STRUCTURE
In computer science, a data structure is a particular way of storing and organizing data in a
computer’s memory so that it can be used efficiently. Data may be organized in many different
ways; the logical or mathematical model of a particular organization of data is called a data
structure. The choice of a particular data model depends on the two considerations first; it must
be rich enough in st ructure to mirror the actual relationships of the data in the real world. On the
other hand, the structure should be simple enough that one can effectively process the data
whenever necessary.

1.6.1 Need of data structure

 It gives different level of organization data.
 It tells how data can be stored and accessed in its elementary level.
 Provide operation on group of data, such as adding an item, looking up highest priority
item.
 Provide a means to manage huge amount of data efficiently.
 Provide fast searching and sorting of data.

1.6.2 Selecting a data structure

Selection of suitable data structure involve following steps –
 Analyze the problem to determine the resource constraints a solution must meet.
 Determine basic operation that must be supported. Quantify resource constraint for each
operation
 Select the data structure that best meets these requirements.
 Each data structure has cost and benefits. Rarely is one data structure better than other in
all situations. A data structure require :
 Space for each item it stores
 Time to perform each basic operation
 Programming effort.
Each problem has constraints on available time and space. Best data structure for the task
requires careful analysis of problem characteristics.

1.6.3 Type of data structure

1.7.3.1 Static data structure

A data structure whose organizational characteristics are invariant throughout its lifetime. Such
structures are well supported by high-level languages and familiar examples are arrays and
records. The prime features of static structures are
(a) None of the structural information need be stored explicitly within the elements – it is often
held in a distinct logical/physical header;
(b) The elements of an allocated structure are physically contiguous, held in a single segment of
memory;
(c) All descriptive information, other than the physical location of the allocated structure, is
determined by the structure definition;
(d) Relationships between elements do not change during the lifetime of the structure.

1.7.3.2 Dynamic data structure

A data struc ture whose organizational characteristics may change during its lifetime. The
adaptability afforded by such structures, e.g. linked lists, is often at the expense of decreased
efficiency in accessing elements of the structure. Two main features distinguish dynamic
structures from static data structures. Firstly, it is no longer possible to infer all structural
information from a header; each data element will have to contain information relating it
logically to other elements of the structure. Secondly, using a single block of contiguous storage
is often not appropriate, and hence it is necessary to provide some storage management scheme
at run-time.

1.7.3.3 Linear Data Structure

A data structure is said to be linear if its elements form any sequence. There are basically two
ways of representing such linear structure in memory.
a) One way is to have the linear relationships between the elements represented by means of
sequential memory location. These linear structures are called arrays.
b) The other way is to have the linear relationship between the elements represented by means of
pointers or links. These linear structures are called linked lists.
The common examples of linear data structure are arrays, queues, stacks and linked lists.

1.7.3.4 Non-linear Data Structure

This structure is mainly used to represent data containing a hierarchical relationship between
elements. E.g. graphs, family trees and table of contents.

1.9 A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DATA STRUCTURES

1.8.1 Array
The simplest type of data structure is a linear (or one dimensional) array. A list of a finite
number n of similar data referenced respectively by a set of n consecutive numbers, usually 1, 2,
3 . . . . . . . n. if we choose the name A for the array, then the elements of A are denoted by
subscript notation

or by the parenthesis notation or by the bracket notation

Example: A 1, A 2, A 3 An

A (1), A (2), A (3).............A (n)

A [1], A [2], A [3].............A [n]

A linear array A[8] consisting of numbers is pictured in following figure.

1.8.2 Linked List

A linked list or one way list is a linear collection of data elements, called nodes, where the linear
order is given by means of pointers. Each node is divided into two parts:
 The first part contains the information of the element/node
 The second part contains the address of the next node (link /next pointer field) in the list.
There is a special pointer Start/List contains the address of first node in the list. If this special
pointer contains null, means that List is empty.
Example:

1.8.3 Tree
Data frequently contain a hierarchical relationship between various elements. The data structure
which reflects this relationship is called a rooted tree graph or, simply, a tree.

1.8.4 Graph
Data sometimes contains a relationship between pairs of elements which is not necessarily
hierarchical in nature, e.g. an airline flights only between the cities connected by lines. This data
structure is called Graph.

1.8.5 Queue
A queue, also called FIFO system, is a linear list in which deletions can take place only at one
end of the list, the Font of the list and insertion can take place only at the other end Rear.

1.8.6 Stack
It is an ordered group of homogeneous items of elements. Elements are added to and removed
from the top of the stack (the most recently added items are at the top of the stack). The last
element to be added is the first to be removed (LIFO: Last In, First Out).

1.9 DATA STRUCTURES OPERATIONS

The data appearing in our data structures are processed by means of certain operations. In fact,
the particular data structure that one chooses for a given situation depends largely in the
frequency with which specific operations are performed.
The following four operations play a major role in this text:

 Traversing: accessing each record/node exactly once so that certain items in the record
may be processed. (This accessing and processing is sometimes called “visiting” the
record.)
 Searching: Finding the location of the desired node with a given key value, or finding
the locations of all such nodes which satisfy one or more conditions.
 Inserting: Adding a new node/record to the structure.
 Deleting: Removing a node/record from the structure.