A way of organizing and storing data in a computer so that it can be accessed and modified efficiently. Different data structures are optimized for different types of operations like searching, sorting, or inserting data.
Compound of 'data' (from Latin 'datum' meaning 'something given') and 'structure' (from Latin 'structura' meaning 'a building or arrangement'). The term emerged in the 1960s as programmers needed formal ways to describe how information was organized in memory.
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