Dictionaries and Arrays: Selecting the Ideal Data Structure

There are a variety of ways of storing and managing data in your Python programs, and the choice of the right data structure will affect the readability of your code, ease of writing, and performance. Python has a wide variety of built-in mechanisms that meet most of your data structure needs.

This course introduces you to two types of data structures: dictionaries and arrays. There are multiple types and classes for both of these data structures and this course discusses them and provides information on how to choose the ideal one.

In this course you’ll learn about:

  • What are the advantages of using the built-in dict type
  • What are four other types of dictionaries
  • How list and tuple types are arrays
  • What are typed arrays and how can they save memory
  • How strings are arrays and what that implies
  • What are the different arrays for storing binary data
  • What are the practical uses for the different types
  • How to select the ideal data structure for your programs

This course is the first part of an ongoing series, exploring how to find the right Data Structure for your projects. The second course is Records and Sets: Selecting the Ideal Data Structure and the third part is Stacks and Queues: Selecting the Ideal Data Structure.

What’s Included:

Downloadable Resources:

Dictionaries and Arrays: Selecting the Ideal Data Structure

1 Lesson 2m

Selecting the Ideal Array

4 Lessons 23m

About Christopher Trudeau

Christopher Trudeau Christopher Trudeau

Christopher has a passion for the Python language and writes for Real Python. He is a consultant who helps advise organizations on how to improve their technical teams.

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