Python Data Structures Literacy (Beginner Level)

Topics covered

• code a bespoke Queue class that includes definitions for many of the standard queue operations, such as enqueue and dequeue
• define a Linked List class and implement functions to insert a node at the head or the tail of the linked list
• describe a linked list, and its contents and structure
• describe techniques used to keep track of the number of elements in a linked list
• describe the queue data structure and compare it to stacks
• identify operations that run in constant time regardless of input
• identify some of the operations on stacks, such as ISEMPTY and ISFULL, and recall the complexities of the different stack operations
• identify what makes a data structure and some of the purposes they serve
• implement a custom Stack class that includes functions for the common stack operations
• recall different methods to remove nodes from a linked list and describe the process of reversing the order of nodes in this data structure
• recall the metrics on which algorithms and operations on data are evaluated
• recognize code whose time complexity varies directly with the value of the input
• recognize how a Python list can be used as a stack by loading and unloading elements from the same end
• recognize how the performance of operations and algorithms is expressed in terms of the size of the input
• recognize operations whose time complexity varies as the square of the input size
• summarize the workings of a stack data structure, including the addition and removal of elements
• use the native Queue class of Python and perform the standard queue operations on it