Dynamic data structures

Motivation

How to store:

• queue of items?
• family tree?

Possibilities?

• array: space may be too much, or not enough
• direct access file: slow

Needed:

• variable size: dynamic data structures
• pointers: access variables

Static vs. Dynamic

Static = fixed size

• array
• space allocated by compiler
• space wasted or insufficent

Dynamic = variable size

• size starts at zero, changes as necessary
• space allocated by programmer
• access variables needed