The second edition of this book considers the design, implementation, and use of data structures using Java 2. Thousands of faculty, students, researchers, industrial and recreational programmers have investigated this lean and well-tested approach to data structure design, which has been the basis of Java structures for more than five years. The text develops a heavily tested package that is independent of, but consistent with, the Collection package offered by Sun. In many cases, the variety of implementations gives the programmer choices of data structure that are not available with the Collection system. For those curricula that make use of the Collection package, the structure package can be easily integrated into existing applications. All classes are fully documented and make consistent use of pre- and post-conditioning, and include support for assertion testing. All code for the book's examples, documentation, and the structure package is posted on the book's website at www.mhhe.com/javastructures. - A thorough discussion of how the structure package relates to Sun's Collection package is included, along with an appendix on how to move back and forth between the two packages. - Many freshly written exercises with drill problems have been added, and more than a dozen original lab exercises focus on interesting and often classic problems of computer science. - Principles of data structure design are emphasized throughout the text. These principles are rarely stated in texts, yet guide professional programmers in making the best design decisions.