Data and Information

☞ Raw facts are known as data.

☞ Data is aggregated and summarized in various meaningful ways to form information.

☞ Data must be represented, stored, organized, processed and managed.

☞ Data Structures are an effective and reliable way to achieve this.

☞ A Data Structure is a named group of data of different data types which is stored in a specific way and can be processed as a single unit.

☞ It has well-defined operations, behaviour and properties.

☞ It is classified into two types:

1. Simple Data Structures :-
   • They are built from primitive types like integers, real, characters, boolean.
   • Eg :- Array or Linear Lists.
2. Compound Data Structures :-
   • They can be combined in various ways to form more complex structures.
   • They can be of two types :-
     1. Linear Data Structures :-
        • In these structures, elements form a sequence.
        • Eg :- Stack, Queue, Linked List.
     2. Non-Linear Data Structures :-
        • In these structures, elements do not form a sequence.
        • Eg :- Tree.