Drawing together principles of data management and file processing in a readable form, this new edition explores the theoretical concepts and practical applications of data management and file structures, and familiarizes readers with the complex and fast evolving technology of information handling. The intent has been to preserve the essence of a rigorous mathematical treatment without bogging the reader with unnecessary details.

The first part consists of the most basic aspects of data management (including stacks, queues, and linked lists) and the more complex data structures (trees and graphs).

The second part moves on to cover processing of files (sequential, relative, indexed sequential and multi-key organizations) and the elements of complex data base management systems. It also teaches the reader to analyze the trade-offs of data handling needs of a particular situation, choose data structure or file organization, build the structure, retrieve selected data, and update and maintain it. A reasonable fraction of the book concerns algorithms for building and manipulating data structures and file organizations.

This text will be most meaningful to readers who have at least an introductory knowledge of computer systems and programming in C or FORTRAN. Standard COBOL and fundamental Pascal constructs are used.

Table of Contents

• Preface.
• Introduction to Data Structures.
• Arrays.
• Records.
• Stacks.
• Queues.
• Linked Lists.
• Graphs.
• General and Binary Trees.
• Searching and Sorting.
• File Systems.
• Sequential File Organization.
• Sorting and Merging Files.
• Relative File Organization.
• Index Structures.
• Indexed Sequential File Organization.
• Multi-Key File Organization.
• Glossary.
• Answers to Selected Review Exercises.
• Appendix:
• Meta-Language for COBOL.
• Index.