Summary

In this chapter, we explored various linear data structures, focusing on their definitions, characteristics, and operations. We began with an in-depth look at arrays and linked lists, examining how they handle fundamental operations such as insertion, deletion, and searching. We discussed the trade-offs between these structures, noting the efficiency of arrays in accessing elements and the flexibility of linked lists in dynamic memory allocation. The chapter also covered more advanced linear structures such as stacks, queues, and deques, illustrating their practical applications in computer programming, from task scheduling to expression evaluation and resource management.

We then introduced the skip list, a probabilistic data structure that combines the advantages of both arrays and linked lists, offering efficient search, insertion, and deletion operations. Through detailed examples, we demonstrated how skip lists improve upon the limitations of traditional linked lists...