Node (computer science)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A node is an abstract basic unit used to build linked data structures, such as linked lists and trees, and computer-based representation of graphs. Nodes contain data and/or links to other nodes. Links between nodes are often implemented by pointers or references.

A node can be thought of as a logical placeholder for some data. It is a memory block which contains some data unit, and optionally a reference to some other data, which may be another node that contains some other data. By linking one node with other interlinked nodes, very large and complex data structures can be formed.

Nodes are similar to vertices, which are elements of a graph.