Introduction to Data

Structure
Prepared By:
MARIA CRISTINA A. MAGON
(Instructor)
What is a computer?
Computer
Computer is an electronic device
which is used for data processing and
manipulation
In order to make computer
work we need to know:
representation of data in computer
accessing of data
how to solve problem step by step
Definition
 Data structure is representation of the logical
relationship existing between individual elements of
data.
 In other words, a data structure is a way of
organizing all data items that considers not only the
elements stored but also their relationship to each
other.
Definition
Data structures are the building
blocks of any program or the
software.
It is a systematic way to
organize data in order to use it
efficiently.
Data may be organized in many different
ways: the logical or mathematical model of a
particular organization of data
 The study of such data structure, which forms
the subject matter of the text, includes the
following three steps:
1. Logical or mathematical description of the
structure.
2. Implementation of the structure on a computer.
3. Quantitative analysis of the structure, which
include determining the amount of memory
needed to store the structure and the time
required to process the 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
 Need for Data Structure
Data search- consider an inventory of 1
million items of a store. If the application is
to search an item, it has to be search an
item in 1 million items every time slowing
down the search. As data grows, search will
become slower.
 Need for Data Structure
Processor speed- processor speed although
being very high, falls limited if the data
grows 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
Terminologies
 Data: Data can be defined as an elementary
value or the collection of values.
 Data is raw, unorganized facts that need to be
processed. Data can be something simple and
seemingly random and useless until it is
organized.
 Example, student's name and its id are the data
about the student. Each student's test score is
one piece of data.
Terminologies
 Data: Data can be defined as an elementary
value or the collection of values, for example,
student's name and its id are the data about the
student.

 Group Items: Data items which have

subordinate data items are called Group item,
for example, name of a student can have first
name and the last name.
Terminologies
 Record: Record can be defined as the collection of
various data items, for example, if we talk about the
student entity, then its name, address, course and
marks can be grouped together to form the record
for the student.
 File: A File is a collection of various records of one
type of entity, for example, if there are 60
employees in the class, then there will be 20 records
in the related file where each record contains the
data about each employee.
Mrs. Maria Cristina A. Magon
(Instructor)