antonnifo/adts

Abstract data types

An abstract data type, or ADT, specifies a set of operations (or methods) and the semantics of the operations (what they do), but it does not not specify the implementation of the operations.
The definition of ADT only mentions what operations are to be performed but not how these operations will be implemented. It does not specify how data will be organized in memory and what algorithms will be used for implementing the operations. It is called “abstract” because it gives an implementation-independent view. The process of providing only the essentials and hiding the details is known as abstraction.
The user of data type does not need to know how that data type is implemented, So a user only needs to know what a data type can do, but not how it will be implemented. Think of ADT as a black box which hides the inner structure and design of the data type.