Chapter 2: Data Structures

Chapter 2: Data Structures

Joseph P. Damico

Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, CA

Overview

Data structures are a fundamental aspect of software development. LabVIEW presents many predefined data types and structures to the programmer. The simple or atomic data types include Boolean, integer, and floating point. We consider these types to be atomic since they have no smaller parts. A data structure differs from an atomic type because it can be decomposed into smaller parts, which may be atomic types or other data structures. Typical LabVIEW data structures include arrays, clusters, strings, and graphs. The LabVIEW cluster is the same as the structure ( struct ) in C or the record in Pascal. Data structures include definitions for data and related operations. A well-designed data structure can greatly simplify a complicated algorithm. Several common data structures include stacks, queues, linked lists, trees, and graphs. This chapter describes these data structures and presents their LabVIEW implementations, which form the foundations for the sorting and searching algorithms discussed in the next chapter , ?Algorithms.?

A good data structure has several important characteristics. Encapsulation prevents users from accessing protected data. A familiar example of encapsulation comes from LabVIEW?s array data type. While we can read the array size, we cannot modify it directly. We modify it only when we append to the array or otherwise resize it. Information hiding keeps programmers from seeing internal data in a structure. Hiding internal data keeps VI diagrams cleaner. The linked list example presented...

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