Traversal is the process of visiting all the nodes or elements in a data structure, such as an array, linked list, tree, or graph, typically for the purpose of processing or inspecting the data contained within. In computer science, traversal algorithms are crucial for data manipulation and analysis, as they provide a systematic method for accessing each element. The specific method of traversal can vary depending on the data structure:

• For arrays and linked lists, traversal is usually linear, moving sequentially from one element to the next.

• Trees have several traversal patterns, including in-order, pre-order, and post-order for binary trees, which determine the order in which nodes are visited.

• Graphs can be traversed using algorithms like depth-first search (DFS) or breadth-first search (BFS), each exploring the nodes and edges according to different rules and for different purposes, such as searching or pathfinding.

Traversal is a fundamental concept in algorithm design and is often a step in more complex operations like sorting, searching, and transforming data structures.