Chapter 01 - A Practical Introduction to

 Data Structures and Algorithm Analysis

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The Need for Data Structures
 Data structures organize data
 more efficient programs.
 More powerful computers
 more complex applications.
 More complex applications demand
more calculations.
 Complex computing tasks are unlike our
everyday experience.

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What is a data structure?
 In a general sense, any data
representation is a data structure.
Example: An integer
 More typically, a data structure is meant
to be an organization for a collection of
data items.

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 Organizing Data

 Any organization for a collection of records

can be searched, processed in any order,
or modified.
 The choice of data structure and algorithm
can make the difference between a
program running in a few seconds or many
days.
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 Efficiency
 A solution is said to be efficient if it solves
the problem within its resource constraints.
 Space
 Time
 The cost of a solution is the amount of
resources that the solution consumes.

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Costs and Benefits
 A data structure requires a certain
amount of:
 space for each data item it stores

 time to perform a single basic operation

 programming effort.

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 Example: Banking Application
 Operations are (typically):
 Open accounts (far less often than access)

 Close accounts (far less often than access)

 Access account to Add money

 Access account to Withdraw money

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 Example: Banking Application
 Teller and ATM transactions are expected to
take little time.

 Opening or closing an account can take

much longer (perhaps up to an hour).

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 Example: Banking Application
 When considering the choice of data
structure to use in the database system that
manages the accounts, we look for a data
structure that:
 Is inefficient for deletion

 Highly efficient for search

 Moderately efficient for insertion

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Example: Banking Application
 One data structure that meets these requirements is
the hash table
 Records are accessible by account number (called an
exact-match query)
 Hash tables allow for extremely fast exact-match
search.
 Hash tables also support efficient insertion of new
records.
 Deletions can also be supported efficiently (but too
many deletions lead to some degradation in
performance – requiring the hash table to be
reorganized).

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Example: City Database
 Database system for cities and towns.
 Users find information about a
particular place by name (exact-match
query)
 Users also find all places that match a
particular value (or range of values),
such as location or population size
(called a range query).

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 Example: City Database
 The database must answer queries quickly
enough to satisfy the patience of a typical user.
 For an exact-match query, a few seconds is
satisfactory
 For a range queries, the entire operation may
be allowed to take longer, perhaps on the order
of a minute.

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 Selecting a Data Structure
Select a data structure as follows:
1. Analyze the problem to determine the resource
constraints a solution must meet.
2. Determine the basic operations that must be
supported. Quantify the resource constraints
for each operation.
3. Select the data structure that best meets these
requirements.

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 Some Questions to Ask
 Are all data inserted into the data structure
at the beginning, or are insertions
intersparsed with other operations?
 Can data be deleted?
 Are all data processed in some well-
defined order, or is random access
allowed?

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 Data Structure Philosophy

 Each data structure has costs and benefits.

 Rarely is one data structure better than
another in all situations.
 A data structure requires:
 space for each data item it stores,
 time to perform each basic operation,
 programming effort.

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 Philosophy cont…

 Each problem has constraints on available

space and time.
 Only after a careful analysis of problem
characteristics can we know the best data
structure for the task.
 Bank example:
 Start account: a few minutes
 Transactions: a few seconds
 Close account: overnight

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 Abstract Data Types

 Abstract Data Type (ADT): a definition for

a data type solely in terms of a set of
values and a set of operations on that data
type.
 Each ADT operation is defined by its inputs
and outputs.

 Encapsulation: Hide implementation

details.
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 ADT
The concept of abstraction means:
1. We know what a data type can do.
2. How it is done is hidden.
Abstract data type:
1. Definition of data.
2. Definition of operations.
3. Encapsulation of data and operation.
 
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 Data Structure

 A data structure is the physical implementation of an ADT.

 Each operation associated with the ADT is implemented by one
or more subroutines in the implementation.
 In a OO language such as C++, an ADT and its
implementation together make up a class.
 Data structure usually refers to an organization for data in
main memory.

 File structure: an organization for data on peripheral

storage, such as a disk drive.

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 Labeling collections of objects

 Humans deal with complexity by assigning a label

to an assembly of objects.
 An ADT manages complexity through abstraction.
 Hierarchies of labels

 Ex1: transistors  gates  CPU.

 In a program, to implement an ADT, then think only

about the ADT, not its implementation.
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 Logical vs. Physical Form

 Data items have both a logical and a physical form.

 Logical form: definition of the data item within an

ADT.
 Ex: Integers in mathematical sense: +ve, -ve

 Physical form: implementation of the data item within

a data structure.
 Ex: 16/32 bit integers, overflow.

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Problems, Algorithms and
Programs
 Programmers deal with:
 problems,
 algorithms and
 computer programs.

These are distinct concepts…

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 Problems

 Problem: a task to be performed.

 Best thought of as inputs and matching
outputs.
 Problem definition should include constraints
on the resources that may be consumed by
any acceptable solution.

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 Problems (cont)

 Problems  mathematical functions

 A function is a matching between inputs (the domain)
and outputs (the range).
 An input to a function may be single number, or a
collection of information.
 The values making up an input are called the
parameters of the function.
 A particular input must always result in the same
output every time the function is computed.

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 Algorithms and Programs
 Algorithm: a method or a process followed to solve a
problem.
 A recipe: The algorithm gives us a “recipe” for solving the
problem by performing a series of steps, where each step is
completely understood and doable.
 An algorithm takes the input to a problem (function)
and transforms it to the output.
 A mapping of input to output.
 A problem can be solved by many algorithms.

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A problem can have many
algorithms
For example, the problem of sorting can be
solved by the following algorithms:
 Insertion sort

 Bubble sort

 Selection sort

 Shellsort

 Mergesort

 Others

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 Algorithm Properties

Properties of algorithms:
 It must be correct.
 It must be composed of a series of concrete
steps.
 There can be no ambiguity as to which step
will be performed next.
 It must be composed of a finite number of
steps.
 It must terminate.
.
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 Programs
 A computer program is a concrete
representation of an algorithm in some
programming language.
 Naturally, there are many programs that
are instances of the same algorithms, since
any modern programming language can be
used to implement any algorithm.

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To Summarize:
 A problem is a function or a mapping of
inputs to outputs.
 An algorithm is a recipe for solving a
problem whose steps are concrete and
non-ambiguous.
 A program is an instantiation of an
algorithm in a computer programming
language.

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Example
 Problem: find y = x to the power of 2
 Algorithm1: Multiply X by X
 Algorithm2: Add X to itself X times
 Program1: for (int i = 0; i<x; i++)
y +=x;

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In class exercises
 Write an algorithm to compute the sum of the first n
counting numbers

 calcSum (integer n)
Sum 0
for i 1 to n
sum sum + i
return sum

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