Data Structure

A Structure, usually in computer memory, used to organize data and information for better algorithm efficiency is called Data structure. Examples are array, linked-lists, queue, stack and tree.

In the design of computer programs, the choice of data structure is a primary design consideration. The quality of final results depends heavily on choosing the best data structure. The choice of appropriate data structure is crucial and has given rise to many design methods and programming languages. Object oriented languages such as C++ and Java are one group of languages that exhibit this philosophy, and have several in-built structures.

A data structure can also be defined as an aggregation of atomic and structured data types into a set with defined relationships. Structure means a set of rules that hold the data together. In other words, if we take a combination of data types and fit them into a structure such that we can define its relating rules, we have made a data structure. Data structures can be nested. We can have a data structure that consists of other data structures.