AP
Computer Science
 
   
       
   




 

{ Generic Data Structure Viewer }




The GDSV is a teaching aid for the instructor as well as a student aid for debugging labs.
  • We as teachers design “Data Structure Labs,” so that our students can practice common operations on data structures.
    • For example, in a BinarySearchTree.java lab, you might have your students implement methods such as insert(), delete(), find(), numNodes(), numLeaves(), height(), width(), etc. We’d like to provide a way to debug code that avoids using cumbersome tracing techniques, such as System.out.println().
  • Now you can take your existing labs and use the GDSV to see (literally) what is going on with your code.
    • The neat thing is that you do not need to change the labs you’ve been assigning for years. You simply have the students implement an interface and write a single method that returns the array representation of the data structure specified.
  • Not only does this program display a visual, but it also provides a transition into lectures about array representations of data structures.