The.Algorithm.Design.Manual.Springer-Verlag.1998

Fundamental Data Types
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Fundamental Data Types
An abstract data type is a collection of well-defined operations that can be performed on a particular
structure. The operations define what the data type does, but not how it works. Abstract data types are
black boxes that we dare not open when we design algorithms that use them.
For each of the most important abstract data types, several competing implementations, or data
structures, are available. Often, alternative data structures realize different design tradeoffs that make
certain operations (say, insertion) faster at the cost of other operations (say, search). In some
applications, certain data structures yield simpler code than other implementations of a given abstract
data type, or have some other specialized advantages.
We assume that the reader has had some previous exposure to elementary data structures and some
fluency in pointer manipulation. Therefore, we do not discuss these topics here. The reader who wants to
review elementary data structures is referred to any of the books in Section . Instead, we focus on
three fundamental abstract data types: containers, dictionaries, and priority queues. Detailed discussion
of the tradeoffs between implementations of these data types is deferred to the relevant catalog entry.
● Containers
● Dictionaries
● Binary Search Trees
● Priority Queues
Algorithms
Mon Jun 2 23:33:50 EDT 1997
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