Chapter Introduction
Who Should Read This Chapter
This chapter is recommended for readers who wish to systematically master data structures and algorithms.
For those who want to quickly improve their problem-solving skills for written exams, it is not necessary to study this chapter in full. Please refer to the Quick Learning Guide.
Chapter Overview
The best way to learn something is to implement it yourself. This chapter will not focus on algorithm problems but will guide readers through understanding all common data structures and implementing them by hand.
By understanding the underlying principles of these common data structures, you will be able to accurately leverage their characteristics and understand the time complexity of your code when solving algorithm problems in later chapters.
Tip
The focus of this chapter is to help readers understand the implementation principles, advantages, disadvantages, and limitations of each data structure. The Java/C++/Golang/Python/JavaScript code implementations provided ensure correctness and readability.
Extreme optimization and best practices at the programming language level are beyond the scope of this site. If you seek a deeper understanding, you can refer to the standard libraries of the respective programming languages.
Throughout this chapter, the Algorithm Visualization Panel will be frequently used to visualize operations of slightly complex data structures. The visualization code is written in JavaScript but is relatively simple, so it should be easy to understand regardless of your familiarity with JavaScript.