What is a non-linear datastructure?

A non-linear datastrucutre is a datastructure in which the data items in the memory are not allocated contiguously i.e. the data items are dispersed in the memory. The first data item will have a link to the second data item and second data item will have a link to the third data item and so on.

Pros

• Uses memory efficiently that the free contiguous memory in not an requirement for allocating data items
• The length of the data items is not necessary to be known prior to allocation

Cons

• Overhead of the link to the next data item

Examples of non-linear datastructure are Linked List