Week 1 Course

Overview & Java Basics

4009 DATA STRUCTURES & ALGORITHM (DSA)

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 Learning Outcomes
At the end of week 1 students should be able to:
❖ Understand how data structures help in organizing and storing data.
❖ Define and discuss concepts of data structures & algorithm
❖ Differentiate between a data structure and an algorithm
❖ Understand and discuss the three categories where DSA can be applied in the real world
❖ Understand and discuss basic database concepts relating to DSA
❖ Identify basics of a Java program syntax and rules
❖ Implement their first Java program (hello world program)

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 Content Overview
❖Course Overview ❖Databases
o Database Records
❖Definition of a Data Structure
o Database Fields
❖Definition of an Algorithm o Database keys
❖What sort of problems can be solved with ❖Java Basics
DSA? o Getting Started with Java
❖Real World Data Storage o Reserve words & Comments
o Base Types
❖Programmer Tools
❖Class exercise
❖Real World Modelling
❖Lab activity
❖Data Structure Trade-offs
❖Overall costs of structures we’ll study

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Course Overview
After mastering fundamentals of programming. You may start to question:
◦ What are data structures and algorithms?
◦ What good will it do me to know about DSA?
◦ Why can’t I just use arrays and for loops to handle my data?
◦ When does it make sense to apply what I learn here?

Provide background in data structures (arrangements of data in memory) and

algorithms (methods for manipulating this data)
Why is this important? The answer is there is far more to programming than
finding a solution that will work:
◦ Execution time
◦ Memory consumption
So by the end of the course, you should be more equipped to not just develop an
accurate solution to a problem, but the best solution possible.

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Definition of a Data Structure
A data structure is an arrangement of data in a computer’s memory (or disk).
Data structure include arrays, linked lists, stacks, binary trees and hash tables,
etc.

Questions to ponder:
◦ What are some examples of data structures you already know about from your Java
course?

◦ How can the arrangement of data in memory affect performance?

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Definition of an Algorithm
An algorithm provides a set of instructions for manipulating data in structures.

Algorithm involve searching particular data or sorting the data.

Many algorithms apply directly to specific data structures, you need to know how to:
◦ insert a new data item
◦ search for a specific item
◦ delete a specified item
◦ iterate through all the items in a data structure
◦ sort through items in a data structure

Questions to ponder:
◦ What’s an example of an algorithm?
◦ How can the design of an algorithm affect performance? How can it affect memory?

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Data Structure or Algorithm?
Linked List – Data structure

Sort – Algorithm

Search – Algorithm

Stack – Data structure

Vector – Data structure

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What sort of problems can be solved
with DSA?
Rough approximation, we divide the situation into three categories
◦ Real world data storage
◦ Programmer’s tools
◦ Real world Modeling

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Real World Data Storage
Real-world data: data that describes physical entities external to the computer.
Can we think of some examples?
- personal record that describes an actual human being
- an inventory record that describes an existing car part

What’s an example of non-computer data storage?

◦ Addresses and phone #s:
◦ Book names, titles, ISBNs:

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 Real World Data Storage
Example - personal record that describes an actual human being
Say we wanted to convert one of these systems or the example above to a computer program, what must we
consider?
◦ Memory consumption:
◦ How would you save the data in your computer’s memory?

◦ Scalability:
◦ Would your method work for a hundred recorded? A thousand or a million?
◦ Would your method permit quick insertion of a record or deletion of an old record?
◦ How big will each records be and how should be stored?

◦ Algorithms (which ones do we care about?):

◦ Would it allow for fast searching of a specified record?
◦ Suppose you wanted to arrange the cards in alphabetical order. How would you sort them?

Important: Data Structures can be HUGE!!! What are some example scenarios where we need large data
structures?
Now the issue of scalability comes into play. Suppose I design a reusable component for (i.e.) sorting an
array of records by last name. I’m going to distribute this on the internet.

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Programmer Tools
Not all data storage structures are used to store real-world data.
Real world data is accessed more or less directly by a program’s
user
◦ Some data structures are not meant to be accessed by the user but by
the program
◦ A programmer uses such structures as tools to facilitate some other
operation. Use case of stacks, queues and priority queues.
◦ Example - A ‘stack’ of data, where I can only insert or remove
elements from the top:

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Real World Modeling
Effectively, ‘simulate’ a real-world situation. How about airline routes?

For example, what could the following This type of structure is called an
represent: ‘undirected graph’

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Real World Modelling
How about a ‘queue’ of data, where the first element in is the first element out
(termed ‘FIFO’):

Example applications:
• Grocery store lines
• Traffic (Queues are actually used when determining timing of
traffic lights!! How? Let’s think about it)

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 Data Structure Trade-offs
A structure we have dealt with before: arrays
Requirement that is enforced:
◦ Arrays store data sequentially in memory.
Data structures Advantages Disadvantages
Array Quick insertion, very fast access to index Slow search, slow deletion, fixed size
known
Ordered Array Quicker Search than unsorted array Slow insertion and deletion, fixed size

Stack Provide Last-in First-out access Slow access to other items

Queue Provide First-in First out access Slow access to other items
Linked List Quick Insertion, Quick deletion Slow search
Binary Tree Quick search, insertion, deletion (if tree Deletion algorithm is complex
balanced)
Hash Table Very fast access if key known, fast Slow deletion, access slow if key not
insertion known, inefficient memory usage
Heap Fast insertion, deletion, access to large Slow access to other items
item
Graphs Model real world situations Some algorithms are slow and complex

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Overall Costs for Structures We’ll Study
Structure Access Search Insert Delete Impl. Memory

Array Low High Med High Low Low

Ord. Array Low Med High High Med Low

Linked List High High Low Low Med Med

Stack Med High Med Med Med Med

Queue Med High Med Med Med Med

Bin. Tree Med Low Low Low High High

R-B Tree Med Low Low Low Very High High

234 Tree Med Low Low Low Very High High

Hash Table Med Med Low High Low High

Heap Med Med Low Low High High

Graph High High Med Med Med Med

Point that you should be getting: No ‘universal’ data structure!!!

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Algorithms We’ll Study
 Insertion/Searching/Deletion
 Iteration. Java contains data types called iterators which accomplish this.
 Sorting. Believe it or not, there LOTS of ways to do this! So much, you get
two chapters on it.
 Recursion.
 Involves a method calling itself.
 Java uses the term method while other languages use term of function, procedure or subroutine.
 Import step to note: What’s the key attribute of a recursive function in Java?
 This technique will be used to develop some of the afore mentioned algorithms.

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Databases
A database refers to all data that will be dealt with in a particular situation. We
can think of a database as a table of rows and columns:

c
o rows
l
u
m
n

What is the ‘database’ in the case of a collection of index cards and names/phone
#s?

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 Database Records
A record is the unit into which a database is divided. How is a record represented in a
table:

What would be a ‘record’ in a stack of index cards?

What about a banking system? How about a cookbook?

Note: In Java, records are usually represented by objects of an appropriate class.

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 Database Fields
 A field is the unit into which a record is divided. A field holds a particular kind of data.
 Figure 1.1 shows such a record where each line represents a distinct field

Employee
Number
1
2
3
4

 What would some example fields be for a banking system?

Note: In Java, individual variables within an object represent data fields. Also fields within
a class object are called fields in Java

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Database Keys
Given a database (a collection of records), a common operation is obviously
searching. In particular we often want to find a single particular record. But what
exactly does this mean? Each record contains multiple fields, i.e.:

Last First Acct No. City State Zip

Azuma Goro 123456789 St. Pete FL 33712

Smith John 867530912 Clearwater FL 33720

Gunnz JT 102938475 South Bend IN 46545

Zozzfuzzel Ziggy 000000000 St. Pete FL 61589

So how do we designate a record? We need something unique to each record, that’s

the key. What is the key above?

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Database Keys
So if I wanted to search for a particular record, I would want to do it by key (i.e. Acct
No).
Note that searching by anything else could yield multiple records.

Last First Acct No. City State Zip

Azuma Goro 123456789 St. Pete FL 33712

Smith John 867530912 Clearwater FL 33720

Gunnz JT 102938475 South Bend IN 46545

Zozzfuzzel Ziggy 000000000 St. Pete FL 61589

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Java Basics
PART 1 OF 2

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Getting Started with Java
Building data structures and algorithms requires that we communicate detailed
instructions to a computer. An excellent way to perform such communication is
using a high-level computer language, such as Java.

In Java, executable statements are placed in functions,

known as methods, that belong to class definitions.

The Universe class, in our first example, is extremely

simple; its only method is a static one named main, which
is the first method to be executed when running a Java
program.

Any set of statements between the braces “{” and “}”

define a program block.

Notice that the entire Universe class definition is

delimited by such braces, as is the body of the main
method.

The name of a class, method, or variable in Java is called

an identifier, which can be any string of characters as long
as it begins with a letter and consists of letters, numbers,
and underscore characters.

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Reserve words & Comments
Comments
Java allows a programmer to embed comments, which are
annotations provided for human readers that are not
processed by the Java compiler.
Java allows two kinds of comments: inline comments and
block comments.
Java uses a “//” to begin an inline comment, ignoring
everything subsequently on that line.
For example: // This is an inline comment.
While inline comments are limited to one line, Java allows
multiline comments in the form of block comments. J
ava uses a “/*” to begin a block comment and a “*/” to close
it.
For example: /* * This is a block comment. */
Block comments that begin with “/**” (note the second
asterisk) have a special purpose, allowing a program, called
Javadoc, to read these comments and automatically generate
software documentation.

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Base types
The types of objects are determined by the class the come from.
Java provides the following base types (also called primitive types)

Base Types Value Example

boolean True / False “True”, “False”
char 16-bit Unicode character “c”, “a”, “B”, “*”
byte 8-bit signed two’s complement 21, 10, 12
integer
short 16-bit signed two’s complement 100, 125, 234
integer
int 32-bit signed two’s complement 1045, 1222, 1201
integer
long 64-bit signed two’s complement 12456L, 10849L, 10023L
integer
float 32-bit floating-point number 3.456789F, 1.2345678F
Double 64-bit floating-point number (I 3.456789, 1.2345678

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 Simple test program in Java.

Identity the different comments used, use of base types and avoid use of reserve words.

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Topic next week
Week 2 Java Basics (part 2)

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DSA Week 1 activities
Refer to print out materials.
◦ This week, you are required to complete two questionnaires and one lab.
◦ In your DSA textbook 1, answer questions 1 to 6.
◦ Refer to the print out, answer all week 1 questions.
◦ Refer to the print out, complete lab one activity using the lab computers.
Note: You can complete the activities in any order, however, make afford to
finish and understand everything which prepares you for well for test 1, test 2,
Major Assignment, Mid Semester Exam & Final Exam.

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