Data Structures: What are they for?

'A data structure is a group of data elements grouped together under one name. These data elements, known as members, can have different types and different lengths.' (Read more at: http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/structures/). And what this basically means is that a programmer can create a single object to hold a bunch of different types of things in one place. And a good example of this kind of data structure would be the files you use on your computer as that is something that you interact with in your everyday life. The data structure aspect comes from the way in which your files store all kinds of information about themselves in addition to what you or somebody else put into them, like the date, or title/artist/duration of a music file. 

Data structures are also used in another way to help programmers make their lives simpler by hiding away the implementation details. And an example of this could be the way in which your music playing program uses a list data structure to hold all of your music files. And by using this type of data structure the people who write music playing programs can easily add features to allow you to sort your music in a bunch of different ways without worrying about the implementation details about a list by just adjusting the sort function their list data structure uses to be able to sort your songs in alphabetical order by artist or track name, or by the amount of times you played a song so you can easily play your favorite song.