Data Structures in Python
• Research Presentation
• Prepared by: [Your Name]
Background and Motivation
• Data structures are fundamental components in programming that enable efficient
data storage, organization, and manipulation.
• Python offers a wide range of built-in and user-defined data structures, making it
ideal for both beginners and professionals.
• Understanding how and when to use each structure can greatly impact
performance and code quality.
Introduction
• This research explores core data structures available in Python and their real-world
applications.
• It covers both built-in types and advanced structures, highlighting their strengths,
limitations, and use cases.
Research Objectives
• - Introduce the key data structures in Python.
• - Explain the internal implementation and behavior of each.
• - Analyze time and space complexity.
• - Demonstrate practical examples and use cases.
Scope of the Research
• This research focuses on data structures within the Python programming language.
• It includes built-in types and data structures from the collections and array
modules.
• It does not cover third-party or platform-specific structures.
Research Methodology
• The research is based on:
• - Python documentation and official tutorials.
• - Code implementation and benchmarking.
• - Analysis of real-world examples and projects.
Overview of Data Structures
• Data structures are ways of organizing and storing data so they can be accessed
and modified efficiently.
• They play a critical role in algorithm design, memory management, and software
architecture.
• Python supports both primitive and complex data structures.
Lists and Tuples
• - Lists: Mutable, ordered collections. Useful for dynamic datasets.
• - Tuples: Immutable, ordered collections. Useful for fixed data.
• Operations: Indexing, slicing, appending, popping, etc.
• Time Complexity: Access O(1), Insert/Delete O(n)
Dictionaries and Sets
• - Dictionaries: Key-value pairs, mutable and unordered (Python 3.7+ maintains
insertion order).
• - Sets: Unordered collections of unique elements.
• Efficient for lookups, membership tests.
• Time Complexity: Average O(1) for lookup, insert, delete.
Stacks and Queues
• - Stack: LIFO structure. Implemented using lists or collections.deque.
• - Queue: FIFO structure. Best implemented with collections.deque.
• Used in parsing, expression evaluation, task scheduling.
• Operations: push(), pop(), enqueue(), dequeue()
Linked Lists
• Python does not have a built-in linked list, but it can be implemented using classes.
• Types: Singly Linked List, Doubly Linked List
• Useful for dynamic memory allocation and efficient insertions/deletions.
• Time Complexity: O(n) for search, O(1) for insert/delete at head.
Trees and Graphs
• Used for hierarchical data and relationships.
• Binary trees, Binary Search Trees (BST), Heaps, Trie.
• Graphs represented using adjacency lists/dictionaries.
• Applications: File systems, routing algorithms, AI.
Advanced Structures
• - Heaps (heapq): For priority queues.
• - deque (collections): Fast appends and pops from both ends.
• - NamedTuple and dataclass: Lightweight data containers.
• - Counter, OrderedDict: Useful enhancements of dict.
Conclusion & Recommendations
• Understanding data structures is essential for efficient problem-solving.
• Python's flexibility offers many ways to structure data depending on use-case.
• Choose the right data structure for the right problem to optimize performance.
References
• - Python.org Documentation
• - "Problem Solving with Algorithms and Data Structures" by Brad Miller
• - GeeksforGeeks Python DSA
• - Real Python Tutorials
• - Official Python collections module
