Section 8.1. Introduction

8.1. Introduction

This chapter introduces basic concepts and features of data structures. Arrays are simple data structures consisting only of data items of the same type. Arrays normally are "static" entities, in that they typically remain the same size once they are created, although you can use the ReDim statement to resize an array at execution time. We begin by creating and accessing arrays; we then perform more complex manipulations of arrays, including searching and sorting. We discuss arrays with one dimension and with multiple dimensions. Chapter 24, Data Structures and Chapter 26, Collections introduce dynamic data structures, such as lists, queues, stacks and trees, which typically grow and shrink as programs execute. Chapter 26 also presents Visual Basic's predefined data structures, including lists, queues, stacks and trees.