Dave Saunders describes the concept of linear data structures:
As we said in the introduction, a data structure is ‘linear’ if the elements form a sequence.
That means that the data structure has a first and last element, and each element is connected to its previous and next element.
– An ‘array’ is a linear data structure; the items are stores sequentially.
– A ‘graph’ is not a linear data structure; any node can be linked to any other node in the graph – there is no fixed ‘sequence’.
Click through for several examples of linear data structures.