STACKS :

General Representation
and Operations
Kiranpal Singh Virk
Assistant Professor, Guru Nanak Khalsa College
Yamuna Nagar
([email protected])
 TOPICS

• Introduction
• Representation
– Arrays
– Linked List
• Operations
PUSH operation
POP operation
 STACK

• Generally speaking:
– “a neat pile of objects”
– “rectangular or cylindrical pile of hay,
straw etc”
BOOK STACK
FOOD STACK
CD STACK
 STACK

• A stack is an ordered collection of items into

which new items may be inserted and from
which items may be deleted at one end,
called the top of the stack
 STACK

• A stack is a linear data structure which

satisfies the following properties at any time:
– Allocations and de-allocations are performed in
a last-in-first-out (LIFO) manner.
– i.e. amongst all existing entries at any time, the
last entry to have been allocated is the first
entry to be de-allocated
– only the last entry is accessible
STACK
 STACK

Last-in First-Out

IN OUT

3 2 1
 STACK

Last-in First-Out

IN OUT

1 2 3
 STACK

Last-in First-Out

IN OUT

1 2 3
 STACK APPLICATIONS

• Applications of Stacks
– Page-visited history in a Web browser
– Undo sequence in a text editor
– Saving local variables when one function calls
another, and this one calls another, and so on.
 REPRESENTATION OF
STACK

• Stack can be represented in computer in the

following two ways:
– Array Representation
– Linked Representation
 ARRAY-BASED STACK

• A simple way of implementing the Stack

uses an array
• A variable TOP contains the location of the
top element of the stack
TOP
S …..
 ARRAY-BASED STACK
n

n-1

“a stack is an ordered collection of items …..

into which new items may be inserted and …..
from which items may be deleted at one
top D 4
of the stack”
end, called the toptop
C 3

B 2
A B C D
A 1
1 2 3 4 ….. ….. n-1 n
 ARRAY-BASED STACK

top H
top G G
top F F F
top E E E E
top D D D D D
C C C C C
B B B B B
A A A A A
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)
 ARRAY-BASED STACK

top H
G top G
F F top F
E E E top E
D D D D top D
C C C C C
B B B B B
A A A A A
(e) (f) (g) (h) (i)
 ARRAY-BASED STACK
H
G G G
F F F F F
top E E E E E E E
D D D D D D D D D
C C C C C C C C C
B B B B B B B B B
A A A A A A A A A
(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g) (h) (i)
ARRAY-BASED STACK

E
top D
C
B
A
ARRAY-BASED STACK

F
top E
D
C
B
A
ARRAY-BASED STACK

G
top F
E
D
C
B
A
ARRAY-BASED STACK

H
top G
F
E
D
C
B
A
 ARRAY-BASED STACK

• A variable MAXSTK which gives the

maximum number of elements that can be
held by the stack

TOP MAXSTK
S …..
 ARRAY-BASED STACK

• The condition TOP=0 or TOP=NULL

indicates that the stack is empty.

TOP=NULL
MAXSTK
STACK
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
 ARRAY-BASED STACK

• The condition TOP=MAXSTK indicates that

stack is full.

TOP MAXSTK
STACK A B C D E F G H
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
 ARRAY-BASED STACK

• MAXSTK=8
• TOP=4
• 4 more items can be added on the stack

TOP MAXSTK
STACK A B C D
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
 OPERATIONS ON
STACK

• Two basic operations on stacks

– PUSH is the term used to insert an
element into stack
– POP is the term used to delete an
element from a stack
 PUSH OPERATION

• Before executing the PUSH operation, one

must test if there is a room in the stack for
new item or not
• Stack-full condition is called “overflow”
TOP MAXSTK
STACK A B C D
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
 PUSH OPERATION
PUSH(STACK, TOP, MAXSTK, ITEM)
This procedure pushes an ITEM onto a stack
(1) If TOP = MAXSTR, then: Print: OVERFLOW,
and Return [stack already filled ?]
(2) Set TOP = TOP+1 [increases TOP by 1]
(3) Set STACK[TOP] = ITEM [Inserts ITEM in new
TOP position]
(4) Return
 START PUSH OPERATION

IF TOP = YES PRINT

MAXSTR “OVERFLOW”
NO
TOP = TOP + 1

STACK[TOP] = ITEM

STOP
 START PUSH OPERATION

IF TOP = YES PRINT

MAXSTR “OVERFLOW”
NO
TOP = TOP + 1

STACK[TOP] = ITEM

STOP
 POP OPERATION

• Before executing the POP operation, one

must test whether there is an element in the
stack to be deleted or not
• Empty stack condition is called “underflow”
TOP MAXSTK
STACK A B C D
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
 POP OPERATION
POP(STACK, TOP, ITEM)
This procedure deletes the top element of stack and
assigns it to the variable ITEM
(1) If TOP = 0, then: Print: UNDERFLOW, and
Return [stack empty ?]
(2) Set ITEM = STACK[TOP] [Assign TOP
element to ITEM]
(3) Set TOP = TOP-1 [Decreases TOP by 1]
(4) Return
 START POP OPERATION

YES PRINT
IF TOP = 0
“UNDERFLOW”
NO
ITEM = STACK[TOP]

TOP = TOP - 1

STOP
 START POP OPERATION

YES PRINT
IF TOP = 0
“UNDERFLOW”
NO
ITEM = STACK[TOP]

TOP = TOP - 1

STOP
 LIMITATIONS OF
ARRAY-BASED STACK

• The maximum size of the stack must be

defined a priori , and cannot be changed
• Trying to push a new element into a full
stack causes an implementation-specific
exception
 LINKED LIST BASED
STACK

TOP •

3 2 1
• • X

PUSH OPERATION
 LINKED LIST BASED
STACK

TOP •

4 3 2 1
• • • X

PUSH OPERATION
 LINKED LIST BASED
STACK

TOP •

4 3 2 1
• • • X

POP OPERATION
 LINKED LIST BASED
STACK

TOP •

3 2 1
• • X

POP OPERATION
main( ) FUNCTION
{ CALL STACK
int a = 5, b = 2, c ;
c = add ( a, b ) ;
when call
printf ( "sum = %d", c ) ;
to add() is
} met
add ( int i, int j )
{
int sum ;
sum = i + j ;
return sum ; 5 copy of a
} 2 copy of b
main( ) FUNCTION
{ CALL STACK
int a = 5, b = 2, c ;
c = add ( a, b ) ;
printf ( "sum = %d", c ) ; before
transferring
} control to
add ( int i, int j ) add()
{
int sum ;
sum = i + j ; xxx address of printf()
return sum ; 5 copy of a
} 2 copy of b
main( ) FUNCTION
{ CALL STACK
int a = 5, b = 2, c ;
c = add ( a, b ) ;
after control
printf ( "sum = %d", c ) ;
reaches add()
}
add ( int i, int j )
{
int sum ; 7 copy of sum

sum = i + j ; xxx address of printf()

return sum ; 5 copy of a
} 2 copy of b
main( ) FUNCTION
{ CALL STACK
int a = 5, b = 2, c ;
c = add ( a, b ) ;
printf ( "sum = %d", c ) ; while
returning
} control from
add ( int i, int j ) add()
{
int sum ;
sum = i + j ; xxx address of printf()
return sum ; 5 copy of a
} 2 copy of b
main( ) FUNCTION
{ CALL STACK
int a = 5, b = 2, c ;
c = add ( a, b ) ;
on returning
printf ( "sum = %d", c ) ;
control from
} add()
add ( int i, int j )
{
int sum ;
sum = i + j ;
return sum ;
}
 SUGGESTED READING

• BOOKS:
– A.M. Tenenbaum, “Data Structures using C”,
Prentice Hall
– S. Lipschutz, “Theory and Problems of Data
Structures”, McGraw Hill
• ONLINE RESOURCES
– Microsoft MSDN library
Thank You