Programming and Data Structures Topics - GATE CS & IT Syllabus

1

Programming in C

C programming syntax, pointers, memory allocation, structures, functions.

2m3/10

📌 Key FormulaPointer arithmetic: *(ptr+i) equivalent to ptr[i].

2

Recursion

Function calling itself, base case, recursive case.

1m2/10

📌 Key FormulaRecurrence relation for time complexity.

3

Arrays

Contiguous memory storage of same-type elements.

1m1/10

📌 Key FormulaIndex zero-based, address calculation.

4

Stacks

LIFO data structure; push/pop operations.

1m1/10

📌 Key FormulaStack top, overflow/underflow conditions.

5

Queues

FIFO data structure; enqueue/dequeue.

1m1/10

📌 Key FormulaCircular queue: rear = (rear+1)%size.

6

Linked lists

Dynamic data structure with nodes connected by pointers.

1m2/10

📌 Key FormulaInsert/delete O(1) given pointer.

7

Trees

Hierarchical data structure with root and child nodes.

1m2/10

📌 Key FormulaHeight, depth, number of nodes in full binary tree.

8

Binary search trees

Binary tree where left child < root < right child.

1m2/10

📌 Key FormulaSearch, insert, delete in O(height) average O(log n).

9

Binary heaps

Complete binary tree with heap property (max-heap/min-heap).

1m2/10

📌 Key FormulaArray representation: children at 2i+1, 2i+2.

10

Graphs

Nodes and edges; directed/undirected, weighted/unweighted.

1m2/10

📌 Key FormulaAdjacency matrix vs adjacency list.