Course Syllabus
A typical syllabus for a "Data Structures Using C" course encompasses fundamental concepts of data organization and manipulation, implemented using the C programming language. The core topics generally include:
1. Introduction to Data Structures and Algorithms:
- Definition of data structures, abstract data types (ADTs).
- Algorithm analysis: time and space complexity, Big-O notation, best, worst, and average case analysis.
- Recursion and its applications.
2. Linear Data Structures:
- Arrays: Definition, representation in memory, operations (traversal, insertion, deletion, searching, updating), multidimensional arrays, sparse matrices.
- Linked Lists: Singly linked lists, doubly linked lists, circular linked lists, header linked lists; operations (traversal, insertion, deletion, searching), memory allocation (garbage collection, overflow/underflow).
- Stacks: ADT, array-based and linked list implementations, operations (push, pop, peek), applications (expression evaluation, infix to postfix conversion, function call stack).
- Queues: ADT, array-based and linked list implementations, operations (enqueue, dequeue), circular queues, priority queues, applications.
3. Non-Linear Data Structures:
- Trees: Basic terminology, binary trees, binary search trees (BSTs), tree traversals (inorder, preorder, postorder), expression trees, applications.
- Graphs: Terminology, representation (adjacency matrix, adjacency list), types of graphs, graph traversals (Breadth-First Search - BFS, Depth-First Search - DFS), applications (shortest path algorithms like Prim's and Kruskal's for Minimum Spanning Tree).
4. Searching and Sorting Techniques:
- Searching: Linear search, binary search.
- Sorting: Bubble sort, insertion sort, selection sort, quick sort, merge sort, heap sort.
5. Hashing:
- Hash functions, collision resolution techniques (separate chaining, open addressing - linear probing, quadratic probing, double hashing), rehashing.
Practical Component (Lab Work):
The syllabus typically includes practical exercises to implement these data structures and algorithms in C, such as:
- Implementing array operations (matrix addition, insertion/deletion).
- Implementing stack operations and applications (infix to postfix conversion).
- Implementing queue operations (circular queue).
- Implementing linked list operations (singly, doubly, circular).
- Implementing tree traversals and BST operations.
- Implementing graph traversals.
- Implementing various searching and sorting algorithms.