Chapter Introduction
Who Is This Chapter For
This chapter is recommended for readers who wish to systematically master data structures and algorithms.
For readers looking to quickly enhance their problem-solving skills for written tests, there is no need to study this chapter in full. Please refer to the Quick Mastery Directory.
Chapter Overview
This chapter focuses on data structures and sorting algorithms, covering all basic data structures, as well as some advanced data structures commonly used in algorithm problems. It concludes with an explanation of ten sorting algorithms.
Basic data structures include arrays, linked lists, queues, stacks, hash tables, and binary heaps. This chapter will explain their principles, code implementations, and common variants.
Advanced data structures include graphs, segment trees, Fenwick trees, tries, and union-find structures. As this is a foundational chapter, the focus will be on their principles and application scenarios, with specific code implementations arranged in later chapters on data structure design.
Understanding the underlying principles and applicable scenarios of these data structures will enable you to fully utilize each data structure's features to solve algorithm problems and accurately comprehend the time complexity of code.
In this chapter, the Algorithm Visualization Panel will often be used to visualize operations on slightly complex data structures. The visualization code is written in JavaScript, but it is quite simple, so you should be able to understand it easily regardless of your familiarity with JavaScript.
Tip
The focus of this chapter is to help readers understand the implementation principles, advantages, disadvantages, and limitations of each data structure. The provided code implementations in Java/C++/Golang/Python/JavaScript ensure correctness and readability.
Extreme optimization and best practices at the programming language level are not within the scope of this site's teaching. If you seek a deeper understanding, you can refer to the standard libraries of the corresponding programming language.
Of course, the multi-language code I provide may inevitably contain minor errors. Feedback and corrections are welcome so that we can make progress together!