Learn Data Structures by Practicing - Part I
The structure of this article is derived from here. However the organization of this wikipedia article is a mess. It need to be updated urgently in order not to mislead the newbies.
"Algorithm is to construct a proper structure, and insert data. "
---kulasama
Recomendation on hints: Use as few hints as possible.
Data types
Primitive types
Objectives: Knowing how the datum is stored, exploiting intrinsic features of it and avoid making mistakes.
- You should be able to declare, assign, read or print variables of these types.
- You should be able to apply all possible operators to variables of these types and predict the results.
- You should be able to predict the results of conversions between these types.
- You should know the limits of these types and should be able to predict the results of exceeding them.
Boolean
Character
Floating point
- Including single precision floats, double precision (IEEE 754) floats, etc.
Fixed-point numbers
- Integer, including signed and unsigned integer
- Reference, pointer, or handle
Enumerated types
Literatures
- Hacker's Delight, Henry S. Warren, Jr.
Excercises
- Given two 32-bit signed integers a and b, print how many bits changes when turning a to b.
- Hint: Hamming weight of a\underline\vee b
- Given a number of height in inches and a number of height in centimeters, tell whether they equal each other.
- Explain ASCII code 0, 9, 10, 13, and declare variables of them in charactor literals.
- How to process emojis?
- Given n integers, each of them appears twice except for one, which appears exactly once. Find that single one.
- Advanced: Given n integers, each of them appears three times except for one, which appears exactly once. Find that single one.
**Only premitive types are allowed in these excersices. **
Composite types or non-primitive type
Objectives: Getting familiar with how multiple data are organized basically.
Array
Record, tuple, or structure
String
Union
Tagged union, variant, variant record, discriminated union, or disjoint union
Excercises
- Given a string of a heximal number (might not be an integer), print it in decimal form.
- Write a programm of encryption and decryption of Caesar ciphering.
- Name algorithms of string searching and compare their advantages and disadvantages.
- Implement a expression evaluator supporting decimal numbers (with or without seperator), + and -.
- Store sparse matrices with various methods and compare where they should be applied. (Note that some of them depends pointers or references)
- Dictionary of keys
- List of lists
- Coordinate list
- Compressed sparse row
- Compressed sparese column
- Diagnal
- Orthogonal linked list
- ELLPACK
- ELLPACK + Coordinates
- Implement a hash table.
- How do you hash the keys and how do you handle the conflictions?
- Hint: Consider there are n key-value pairs and the keys are respectfully k\ldots k+n, where k is an constant integer, try to design a structure storing and retrieving values by keys in O\left(1\right).
- What if the keys are 3*k, where k is in 1\ldots n?
- What if the keys are distinct integers?
- What if the keys are mostly distinct integers?
- What if the keys are strings?
Basic data structures
Objective: Understanding the principles of basic data structures, and knowing when to use them.
Linked list
- Singly linked list
- Doubly linked list
- XOR linked list
Excercises
- Use arrays to implement linked lists.
- Append a node into a given list.
- Insert a node after a given node.
- Remove a node from a given list.
- Empty a list.
- Use pointers or references to implement linked lists.
- Revert a given linked list(unless otherwise specified, linked lists refer to sigly linked list of number)
- Find n'th node from the end of a given linked list.
- Find the middle node of a given linked list.
- Sort a given linked list.
- If you get stucked on this problem, you may also try the following problems first.
- Find and delete a specified node in a given linked list.
- Swap two nodes on a given linked list.
- Implement bubble sort on linked lists.
- Given an ordered linked list, insert a new number without destroying its order.
- Implement insertion sort on linked lists.
- Given a linked list, divide them into two even halves.
- Given two ordered linked lists, merge them into one ordered linked list.
- Implement merge sort on linked lists.
- Given a linked list, divide them into two halves(might not be even) and meanwhile let each number in the first half be greater than all numbers in the second half.
- Implement quick sort on linked lists.
- Given a linked list(assume it is), tell whether there is a loop and find the entry of it.
- Given two linked list, tell whether and where they intersect each other. What if there can be loops?
Stack
Excercises
- Use array to implement stacks.
- Push a node into a given stack.
- Pop a node from a given stack.
- Peak the top node of a given stack.
- Empty a given stack.
- Use pointers or references to implement stacks. Including the operations above.
- Implement undo/redo functionality(or back/forward navigation in explorer).
- Given a sequence of push operations and a sequence of pop operations, tell whether it can be valid.
- Implement a queue supporting
push()
.pop()
andgetMin()
. - Without recursion, use backtracking to solve n queens problem.
- Based on the expression evaluator above, add \times and \div support.
- Based on the expression evaluator above, add brackets support.
Queue
Excercises
- Use arrays to implement queue.
- Enqueue a node into a given queue.
- Dequeue a node from a given queue.
- Empty a queue.
- Use pointers or references to implement linked lists.
- Given a sequence of enqueue operations and a sequence of dequeue operations, tell whether it can be valid.
- Implement a queue supporting
enqueue()
.dequeue()
andgetMin()
. - Hint: You may first think of implementing a queue with stacks.
- Implement a circular buffer. // TODO: Better problem needed
- Implement a message queue. // TODO: Better problem needed
Tree
Excercises
- Explain binary tree, full binary tree, complete binary tree.
- Given the root node of a tree, print its pre-order traversal, in-order traversal, post-order traversal and level-order traversal.
- Same problem, without recursion.
- Given the post-order traversal and in-order traversal of a tree, print its pre-order traversal.
- Given a tree with a in-order traversal of which the data are in increasing order, i.e. BST, insert a new node while keeping this property.
- Implement a sorting algorithm with it (tree sort).
- Given n, how many structurally unique BST's (binary search trees) that store values 1\ldots n?
- Hint: Catalan Number.
- Analyze the complexity of BST, tell in which situation it behaves bad.
- Implement a binary heap.
- Consider a complete binary tree. Can it be properly stored in an array? How to get parent / child node of a given node?
- If every node of this tree either has no parent (it is the root! ) or the datum of its parent is larger than its, it is called a heap. Can you insert a new node, and keep its properties (complete binary tree, parent datum larger than children datum)?
- If the root node is removed, can you transform the rest nodes into a heap?
- Implement a sorting algorithm with it (heap sort).
- Given a tree (no root node specified), print its diameter.
- The diameter of a tree (T=\left(V, E\right)) is defined as max_{u,v\in V}\delta\left(u, v\right), which means, the length of longest path among all shortest paths between all vertices.
- Given a set of strings, find them in a text.
- Hint: Aho-Corasick algorithm
- Construct Huffman tree with a given set of nodes and their weights.
Graph
- Store a graph with:
- Adjacency matrix
- Adjacency list
- Explain the possible meaning of powers of adjacency matrices.
- Generate minimum spanning tree of a given graph.
- Prim, Krustal, etc.
- Calculate shortest paths from a source node s to a target node t in a given graph.
- Hint: DFS, BFS, Bidirectional BFS, Dijkstra, Bellman-ford, etc.
- Compare their complexity and tell what kind of graphs fit them best.
- Calculate shortest paths from a source node s to every other node in a given graph.
- Calculate shortest paths from every node to every other node in a given graph.
- Floyd-Warshall
Learn Data Structures by Practicing - Part I
The structure of this article is derived from here. However the organization of this wikipedia article is a mess. It need to be updated urgently in order not to mislead the newbies.
"Algorithm is to construct a proper structure, and insert data. "
---kulasama
Recomendation on hints: Use as few hints as possible.
Data types
Primitive types
Objectives: Knowing how the datum is stored, exploiting intrinsic features of it and avoid making mistakes.
- You should be able to declare, assign, read or print variables of these types.
- You should be able to apply all possible operators to variables of these types and predict the results.
- You should be able to predict the results of conversions between these types.
- You should know the limits of these types and should be able to predict the results of exceeding them.
Boolean
Character
Floating point
- Including single precision floats, double precision (IEEE 754) floats, etc.
Fixed-point numbers
- Integer, including signed and unsigned integer
- Reference, pointer, or handle
Enumerated types
Literatures
- Hacker's Delight, Henry S. Warren, Jr.
Excercises
- Given two 32-bit signed integers a and b, print how many bits changes when turning a to b.
- Hint: Hamming weight of a\underline\vee b
- Given a number of height in inches and a number of height in centimeters, tell whether they equal each other.
- Explain ASCII code 0, 9, 10, 13, and declare variables of them in charactor literals.
- How to process emojis?
- Given n integers, each of them appears twice except for one, which appears exactly once. Find that single one.
- Advanced: Given n integers, each of them appears three times except for one, which appears exactly once. Find that single one.
**Only premitive types are allowed in these excersices. **
Composite types or non-primitive type
Objectives: Getting familiar with how multiple data are organized basically.
Array
Record, tuple, or structure
String
Union
Tagged union, variant, variant record, discriminated union, or disjoint union
Excercises
- Given a string of a heximal number (might not be an integer), print it in decimal form.
- Write a programm of encryption and decryption of Caesar ciphering.
- Name algorithms of string searching and compare their advantages and disadvantages.
- Implement a expression evaluator supporting decimal numbers (with or without seperator), + and -.
- Store sparse matrices with various methods and compare where they should be applied. (Note that some of them depends pointers or references)
- Dictionary of keys
- List of lists
- Coordinate list
- Compressed sparse row
- Compressed sparese column
- Diagnal
- Orthogonal linked list
- ELLPACK
- ELLPACK + Coordinates
- Implement a hash table.
- How do you hash the keys and how do you handle the conflictions?
- Hint: Consider there are n key-value pairs and the keys are respectfully k\ldots k+n, where k is an constant integer, try to design a structure storing and retrieving values by keys in O\left(1\right).
- What if the keys are 3*k, where k is in 1\ldots n?
- What if the keys are distinct integers?
- What if the keys are mostly distinct integers?
- What if the keys are strings?
Basic data structures
Objective: Understanding the principles of basic data structures, and knowing when to use them.
Linked list
- Singly linked list
- Doubly linked list
- XOR linked list
Excercises
- Use arrays to implement linked lists.
- Append a node into a given list.
- Insert a node after a given node.
- Remove a node from a given list.
- Empty a list.
- Use pointers or references to implement linked lists.
- Revert a given linked list(unless otherwise specified, linked lists refer to sigly linked list of number)
- Find n'th node from the end of a given linked list.
- Find the middle node of a given linked list.
- Sort a given linked list.
- If you get stucked on this problem, you may also try the following problems first.
- Find and delete a specified node in a given linked list.
- Swap two nodes on a given linked list.
- Implement bubble sort on linked lists.
- Given an ordered linked list, insert a new number without destroying its order.
- Implement insertion sort on linked lists.
- Given a linked list, divide them into two even halves.
- Given two ordered linked lists, merge them into one ordered linked list.
- Implement merge sort on linked lists.
- Given a linked list, divide them into two halves(might not be even) and meanwhile let each number in the first half be greater than all numbers in the second half.
- Implement quick sort on linked lists.
- Given a linked list(assume it is), tell whether there is a loop and find the entry of it.
- Given two linked list, tell whether and where they intersect each other. What if there can be loops?
Stack
Excercises
- Use array to implement stacks.
- Push a node into a given stack.
- Pop a node from a given stack.
- Peak the top node of a given stack.
- Empty a given stack.
- Use pointers or references to implement stacks. Including the operations above.
- Implement undo/redo functionality(or back/forward navigation in explorer).
- Given a sequence of push operations and a sequence of pop operations, tell whether it can be valid.
- Implement a queue supporting
push()
.pop()
andgetMin()
. - Without recursion, use backtracking to solve n queens problem.
- Based on the expression evaluator above, add \times and \div support.
- Based on the expression evaluator above, add brackets support.
Queue
Excercises
- Use arrays to implement queue.
- Enqueue a node into a given queue.
- Dequeue a node from a given queue.
- Empty a queue.
- Use pointers or references to implement linked lists.
- Given a sequence of enqueue operations and a sequence of dequeue operations, tell whether it can be valid.
- Implement a queue supporting
enqueue()
.dequeue()
andgetMin()
. - Hint: You may first think of implementing a queue with stacks.
- Implement a circular buffer. // TODO: Better problem needed
- Implement a message queue. // TODO: Better problem needed
Tree
Excercises
- Explain binary tree, full binary tree, complete binary tree.
- Given the root node of a tree, print its pre-order traversal, in-order traversal, post-order traversal and level-order traversal.
- Same problem, without recursion.
- Given the post-order traversal and in-order traversal of a tree, print its pre-order traversal.
- Given a tree with a in-order traversal of which the data are in increasing order, i.e. BST, insert a new node while keeping this property.
- Implement a sorting algorithm with it (tree sort).
- Given n, how many structurally unique BST's (binary search trees) that store values 1\ldots n?
- Hint: Catalan Number.
- Analyze the complexity of BST, tell in which situation it behaves bad.
- Implement a binary heap.
- Consider a complete binary tree. Can it be properly stored in an array? How to get parent / child node of a given node?
- If every node of this tree either has no parent (it is the root! ) or the datum of its parent is larger than its, it is called a heap. Can you insert a new node, and keep its properties (complete binary tree, parent datum larger than children datum)?
- If the root node is removed, can you transform the rest nodes into a heap?
- Implement a sorting algorithm with it (heap sort).
- Given a tree (no root node specified), print its diameter.
- The diameter of a tree (T=\left(V, E\right)) is defined as max_{u,v\in V}\delta\left(u, v\right), which means, the length of longest path among all shortest paths between all vertices.
- Given a set of strings, find them in a text.
- Hint: Aho-Corasick algorithm
- Construct Huffman tree with a given set of nodes and their weights.
Graph
- Store a graph with:
- Adjacency matrix
- Adjacency list
- Explain the possible meaning of powers of adjacency matrices.
- Generate minimum spanning tree of a given graph.
- Prim, Krustal, etc.
- Calculate shortest paths from a source node s to a target node t in a given graph.
- Hint: DFS, BFS, Bidirectional BFS, Dijkstra, Bellman-ford, etc.
- Compare their complexity and tell what kind of graphs fit them best.
- Calculate shortest paths from a source node s to every other node in a given graph.
- Calculate shortest paths from every node to every other node in a given graph.
- Floyd-Warshall
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