VCE Software Development U3O1 Definitions Worksheet: Data structures and Data sources and files (Modules 98–113)
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Key terms
Write what each term means, in your own words.
1
record
2
student['name']
3
list, dict, tuple
4
TXT file
5
CSV
6
<student><name>Mia</name></student>
7
TXT, CSV, XML
8
line.split(',')
9
records.append(line.strip().split(','))
10
','.join(record)
Answer Key
VCE Software Development U3O1 · Modules 98–113 · Student wording will vary for definitions
1record — A data structure that groups related fields of different data types into one item describing one thing, e.g. a student's name (String), age (Integer) and enrolled (Boolean).
2student['name'] — Gets a field from a record by its field name. A list or tuple record uses the field index (its position) instead, such as student[0]. Indexes start at 0.
3list, dict, tuple — Pick the structure by how you use the data: a list for an ordered collection, a dict for lookup by key, and a tuple for a fixed group of values that should not change.
4TXT file — A plain text file holds unformatted characters, usually one line of text per line ended by a newline. It has no field headings or data types, so everything is read as a string.
5CSV — A text file with one record per line, fields split by a delimiter such as a comma, and an optional header line of field names. Text containing commas goes in quotes.
6<student><name>Mia</name></student> — XML stores data in nested, named elements. Each element has an opening and closing tag, and child elements sit inside a root element. The tags describe the data.
7TXT, CSV, XML — Choose a data source by structure: TXT for simple lines, CSV for tables of records, XML for nested self-describing data shared between systems. All three store data between runs.
8line.split(',') — A string method that breaks a line of text into a list of field strings at each comma. Use strip() first to remove the newline, and int() or float() to convert fields.
9records.append(line.strip().split(',')) — Splits one CSV line into fields and appends them as one record to a list, so each row of the file becomes a record and the whole file becomes a table in memory.
10','.join(record) — Joins a record's fields, which must all be strings, into one comma-separated line. Use str() on numbers first, then write the line plus a newline to the CSV file.