Editing Data structure (section)

{{short description|Particular way of storing and organizing data in a computer}}
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{{distinguish|Data type|Data model}}
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{{Redirect|PORI|other uses|Pori (disambiguation)}}
[[Image:Hash table 3 1 1 0 1 0 0 SP.svg|thumb|315px|A data structure known as a [[hash table]].]] 
In [[computer science]], a '''data structure''' is a [[data]] organization and storage format that is usually chosen for [[Efficiency|efficient]] [[Data access|access]] to data.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1614191|title=Introduction to Algorithms, Third Edition|last1=Cormen|first1=Thomas H.|last2=Leiserson|first2=Charles E.|last3=Rivest|first3=Ronald L.|last4=Stein|first4=Clifford|date=2009|publisher=The MIT Press|isbn=978-0262033848|edition=3rd}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Black |first1=Paul E. |editor1-last=Pieterse |editor1-first=Vreda |editor2-last=Black |editor2-first=Paul E. |title=Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures [online] |date=15 December 2004 |publisher=[[National Institute of Standards and Technology]] |chapter-url=https://xlinux.nist.gov/dads/HTML/datastructur.html |access-date=2018-11-06 |chapter=data structure}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia Britannica |title= Data structure |url=https://www.britannica.com/technology/data-structure |access-date=2018-11-06 |date=17 April 2017}}</ref> More precisely, a data structure is a collection of data values, the relationships among them, and the [[Function (computer programming)|functions]] or [[Operator (computer programming)|operations]] that can be applied to the data,<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1074100.1074312|title=Encyclopedia of Computer Science|last1=Wegner|first1=Peter|last2=Reilly|first2=Edwin D.|publisher=John Wiley and Sons |isbn=978-0470864128|location=Chichester, UK|pages=507–512|date=2003-08-29}}</ref> i.e., it is an [[algebraic structure]] about [[data]].