What is a linear structure and what is a nonlinear structure?

A linear structure is an ordered set of data elements. Commonly used linear structures are: linear table, stack, queue, double queue, array and string.

Nonlinear structure, a mathematical term, its logical feature is that a node element may have multiple direct antecedents and multiple direct posteriors. Common nonlinear structures are: two-dimensional array, multi-dimensional array, generalized table, tree (binary tree, etc. ).

Traditional texts (such as articles in books and computer text files) are all linear structures, so reading should pay attention to sequential reading, while hypertext is nonlinear. When making a text, you can divide the written materials into different units according to their internal relations, and then use the production tools to form a net structure. When reading, you don't have to read in linear order, but read the parts you are interested in selectively.

In hypertext documents, you can use some words, phrases or images as connection points. These connection points are usually distinguished by other colors or underscores, and these forms of files become hypertext files. Through the nonlinear structure, you can realize any page jump.

A data structure with multiple root nodes must be nonlinear.

Linear structural features:

There must be a unique' first element' in the 1. collection;

2. There must be a unique "last element" in the collection;

3. Except the last element, all other data elements have a unique "successor";

4. Except the first element, all other data elements have a unique "predecessor".

The linear structure in data structure refers to the data structure with a "one-to-one" linear relationship between data elements.

Such as (A0, A 1, A2, ..., an), where A0 is the first element and an is the last element, and this set is a set of linear structures.

Corresponding to linear structure, the logical feature of nonlinear structure is that a node element may correspond to multiple immediate predecessors and successors.

References:

Baidu encyclopedia-linear structure