Cheat Sheet for Data Structures in Python
This cheat sheet provides a concise overview of common data structures used in Python programming, with a
focus on Open Source Intelligence (OSINT).
Data Structures
- Stack: A Last-In-First-Out (LIFO) data structure that follows the principle "last element inserted
is the first one to be removed".
- Queue: A First-In-First-Out (FIFO) data structure that follows the principle "first element inserted
is the first one to be removed".
- Tree: A hierarchical data structure consisting of nodes with a value and zero or more child nodes.
- Graph: An unordered collection of vertices connected by edges, which represent relationships between
them.
- Hash Table: An associative data structure that stores key-value pairs in an array using a hash
function to map keys to indices.
OSINT Data Structures
- Entity Extraction: The process of extracting relevant information from unstructured text, such as
names, dates, and locations.
- Named Entity Recognition (NER): A subfield of entity extraction that focuses on identifying named
entities like people, organizations, and locations.
- Text Preprocessing: The process of cleaning and normalizing text data to prepare it for analysis,
including tokenization, stemming, and lemmatization.
- Topic Modeling: A technique used to discover hidden topics or themes in a large corpus of text
data.
Python Implementations
- List: Python's built-in list data structure, which is implemented as a dynamic array.
- Trie: A data structure used for efficient string matching and auto-completion, implemented using
a dictionary in Python.
- Heap: A specialized tree-based data structure that satisfies the heap property, implemented
using an array in Python.
Common Methods
- append(): Adds an element to the end of a list or queue.
- pop(): Removes and returns the last element from a stack or queue.
- insert(): Inserts an element at a specific position in a list or set.
- remove(): Removes the first occurrence of an element in a list.
Best Practices
- Use meaningful variable names and comments to improve code readability.
- Follow PEP 8 guidelines for coding style and conventions.
- Use Python's built-in data structures whenever possible, unless a specific use case requires
otherwise.
This cheat sheet provides a solid foundation for working with data structures in Python. Remember to
practice implementing these concepts to improve your skills.