Data Structures
Here’s a list of 100 basic Data Structures interview questions covering core concepts, operations, and use
cases:
Core Concepts:
1. What is a data structure?
2. What are the different types of data structures?
3. What is the difference between linear and non-linear data structures?
4. What are the basic operations that can be performed on a data structure?
5. What is the importance of data structures in programming?
6. What is the difference between an abstract data type (ADT) and a data structure?
7. What is time complexity, and why is it important?
8. What is space complexity?
9. How do you measure the efficiency of an algorithm?
10. What are Big O, Big Θ, and Big Ω notations?
Arrays:
11. What is an array?
12. How do you declare and initialize an array in different programming languages?
13. What are the advantages and disadvantages of arrays?
14. How do you access elements in an array?
15. What is a multidimensional array?
16. How do you perform binary search on a sorted array?
17. What is the time complexity of array insertion and deletion operations?
18. How do you reverse an array?
19. How do you find the maximum and minimum elements in an array?
20. How do you merge two sorted arrays?
Linked Lists:
21. What is a linked list?
22. What are the different types of linked lists?
23. How does a singly linked list differ from a doubly linked list?
24. What is a circular linked list?
25. How do you insert a node at the beginning of a linked list?
26. How do you delete a node from a linked list?
27. How do you find the length of a linked list?
28. What is the time complexity of searching for an element in a linked list?
29. How do you reverse a linked list?
30. How do you detect a loop in a linked list?
Stacks:
31. What is a stack?
32. What are the primary operations of a stack?
33. What is the difference between stack and queue?
34. How do you implement a stack using arrays and linked lists?
35. What is a stack overflow?
36. What is stack underflow?
37. How do you use a stack to check for balanced parentheses in an expression?
38. How do you convert infix expressions to postfix notation using a stack?
39. What are some practical applications of stacks?
40. How do you evaluate a postfix expression?
Queues:
41. What is a queue?
42. What are the different types of queues?
43. How do you implement a queue using arrays and linked lists?
44. What is a circular queue?
45. What is a priority queue?
46. How do you implement a priority queue?
47. What is the difference between FIFO and LIFO?
48. How do you use a queue to implement a breadth-first search (BFS) algorithm?
49. What is the time complexity of enqueue and dequeue operations?
50. How do you handle queue overflow and underflow?
Trees:
51. What is a tree data structure?
52. What are the different types of trees?
53. What is a binary tree?
54. What is a binary search tree (BST)?
55. How do you perform in-order, pre-order, and post-order traversal of a tree?
56. What is a balanced tree, and why is it important?
57. What is an AVL tree?
58. What is a red-black tree?
59. How do you insert and delete nodes in a binary search tree?
60. What is the time complexity of searching for an element in a BST?
Heaps:
61. What is a heap?
62. What are the different types of heaps?
63. How do you implement a binary heap?
64. What is the difference between a max heap and a min heap?
65. How do you insert an element into a heap?
66. How do you delete the root element from a heap?
67. What is heap sort, and how does it work?
68. What is the time complexity of heap operations?
69. How do you maintain the heap property?
70. What are some applications of heaps?
Hashing:
71. What is hashing?
72. What is a hash function?
73. What are hash tables?
74. What is a collision in hashing, and how do you handle it?
75. What are the different collision resolution techniques?
76. How do you implement open addressing for collision resolution?
77. What is chaining in hashing?
78. What is a load factor in a hash table?
79. How do you handle resizing a hash table?
80. What are the advantages and disadvantages of hashing?
Graphs:
81. What is a graph?
82. What are the different types of graphs?
83. What is the difference between directed and undirected graphs?
84. What is a weighted graph?
85. How do you represent graphs using adjacency matrices and adjacency lists?
86. What is a graph traversal algorithm?
87. How do you implement depth-first search (DFS)?
88. How do you implement breadth-first search (BFS)?
89. What is a shortest path algorithm, and how does Dijkstra’s algorithm work?
90. What is a minimum spanning tree (MST), and how does Prim’s algorithm work?
Advanced Data Structures:
91. What is a trie?
92. How do you implement a trie?
93. What are the different types of tries (e.g., prefix trie, radix trie)?
94. What is a segment tree?
95. How do you use a segment tree for range queries?
96. What is a Fenwick tree (Binary Indexed Tree)?
97. How do you use a Fenwick tree for cumulative frequency tables?
98. What is a B-tree, and how is it used in databases?
99. What is a skip list, and how does it work?
100. How do you implement a disjoint-set (union-find) data structure?
