What is a data structure?

Data structure is a way of representation of relationship between logical related data elements.

Data may be organized in many different ways .

The logical or mathematical model of particular  organization of data is called data structure.

Mathematically

In Mathematically  we can define ­ data structures 

DS= organized data + Allowed operator.

In data structure, decision on the operation such as storage, retrieval and access must be carried out between the logically related data elements only.

Data structure always describe about data representation in memory.

Compiler design

Operating system design like memory management(linked list + hash map)

Database management system( B-tree)

File systems(trees)

Statistic analysis package (data mining alogorithms)

Network data model (graph)

Electronic circuit and simulation ( graphs )

Numerical analysis

Artificial intelligence

Data structure  is normally divide into two type

1. Primitive data structure.
2. Non primitive data structure

 These are basic data structure  and are directly operated   upon by the machine instruction.

Example  –  integer float

These  are more sophisticated data structure these are divided from Primitive data structure.

the Non primitive data structure emphases unstructured  of a group of  heterogeneous and non homogenous data .