datastructures

When talking about data structures, I often like to say that there are two basic ones: arrays and linked lists. These two structures accomplish the same task: storing a sequence of items. But one of them is significantly better in most situations.

A bit array is a simple data structure that allows you to compactly represent an array of booleans, but constructing one requires some low-level binary manipulations that you may not be familiar with. Let’s walk through the basic principles, and mock up a simple example of a bit array.