Data Structures and Lab

Queue Data Structure

Muhammad Tariq Mahmood

[email protected]
School of Computer Science and Engineering

Note: These notes are prepared from the following resources.

▶ Data Structures and Algorithms Using Python by Rance D. Necaise
▶ Data Structures Using Python by Y.K. Choi and I.G. Chan (Korean)
▶ https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/data-structures/
▶ https://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/ehchua/programming/webprogramming/Python1a_OOP.html

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Data Structures

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 Contents

1 Queue Data Structure

2 Implementation of Queue Data Structure

3 Applications of Queue Data Structure

4 Ticket Counter simulation

5 Deque Data Structure and its Implementaion

6 Maze Problem

7 Priority Queue Data Structure

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 Queue Data Structure
Queue Data Structure
▶ Queue is also a special case of list data structure

▶ In contrast to stack, a queue is a FIFO (First-In First-Out ) structure.

▶ A queue is a linear structure for which items can be only inserted at one end and can be removed
at the other end.

▶ One end, is called the front (or head) of the queue, and other end is called the back (or rear or tail).

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 Queue Data Structure (cont...)
▶ Types of Queue

• Simple Queue • Priority Queue

• Circular Queue • Double Ended Queue

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 Queue Data Structure (cont...)
▶ Examples from daily life

• A line of people waiting for a bank teller

• A line of persons waiting to check out at a

supermarket

• A line of persons waiting to purchase a ticket

for a film

• A line of planes waiting to take off at an airport

• A line of cars at a toll both

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 Queue Data Structure (cont...)

FIFO principle

▶ Queues are based on the FIFO principle, i.e., the

element inserted at the first, is the first element
to come out of the list.

▶ Insertion and deletion in queues takes place

from the opposite ends of the list. The insertion
takes place at the rear of the list and the
deletion takes place from the front of the list.

▶ Insert operation is called enqueue operation.

▶ Delete operation is called dequeue operation.

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 Queue Data Structure (cont...)
▶ Queue abstract data type ADT
• Object: Collection of data items such that
First-In, First-Out (FIFO) mechanism is
maintained
• Operations
▶ enqueue(e) : It adds an element e at the rear
end of the queue
▶ dequeue() : It removes the element from the
front end of the queue.
▶ isEmpty(): It returns true if the queue is
empty, otherwise false
▶ peek(): It returns the element at the front
end without removing it from the queue
▶ isFull(): It returns true if the queue is full,
false otherwise
▶ size(): It returns the number of items in the
queue
▶ display(): It displays all elements stored in
the queue

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 Implementation of Queue Data Structure
▶ Consider the queue below and think about few queue operations

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 Implementation of Queue Data Structure (cont...)
▶ Few more operations

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 Implementation of Queue Data Structure (cont...)
Circular Queue ▶ It requires two variables to manage front and
▶ To overcome the shifting elements problem, rear ends
• front : index before the first element
basic idea is to picture the list/array as a
• rear : index for the last element
circular list.

▶ Items can be added/removed without having to shift the remaining items in the process.
▶ Introduces the concept of a maximum capacity queue that can become full.
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 Implementation of Queue Data Structure (cont...)
▶ Behavior of rear and front variables in circular queue

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 Implementation of Queue Data Structure (cont...)
▶ Full and empty queue: Use the remainders (modulo operations) to rotate the index round.

▶ Wrong indexes : front % MAX_QUEUE_SIZE==(rear+1) % MAX_QUEUE_SIZE

▶ Full queue : front ==(rear+1) % MAX_QUEUE_SIZE
▶ Empty queue : front == rear
▶ rear = (rear+1) % MAX_QUEUE_SIZE
▶ front = (front+1)% MAX_QUEUE_SIZE
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 Implementation of Queue Data Structure (cont...)
▶ The Circular Queue is implemented using Python List data structure
▶ The size of the list must be predetermined
▶ It is important to determine empty and full queues

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 Implementation of Queue Data Structure (cont...)
▶ enqueue() and dequeue() functions

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 Implementation of Queue Data Structure (cont...)
▶ Display the items in the queue ( __str__(self) or display(self) )

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 Applications of Queue Data Structure
▶ Queues have a wide range of applications
• Queue can be used to solve scheduling and parallel programming problems.
• Queue can be used in breadth-first search (BFS) on a tree or graph data structure.
• Queue can be used in scheduling print jobs between printer and computer (buffering)
• Queue can be used in buffering in real-time video streaming
• Queue can be used simulations (airplanes at airports, queues at banks)
• Queue can be used to model data packets in communications

▶ Computers can be used to model and simulate real-world systems and phenomena using Queue
data structure.
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 Ticket Counter simulation

Ticket Counter simulation

▶ A computer simulation can be developed to

model this Ticketing Counter system.

▶ How many ticket agents are needed at certain

times of the day in order to provide timely
services to passengers?

▶ Too many agents will cost the airline money.

▶ Too few will result in angry passengers (i.e.

passengers have to wait for long times).

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 Ticket Counter simulation (cont...)
▶ Queuing System : A system where customers must stand in line awaiting service.

▶ A queue structure is used to model the system.

▶ Simple systems only require a single queue.

▶ The goal is to study certain behaviors or outcomes.

• average wait time
• average queue length
• average service time

▶ Consists of a sequence of significant events that cause a change in the system. Some sample events
include:
• Passenger arrival
• Start or end of service
• Customer departure

▶ To correctly model a queuing system, some events must occur at random. (i.e. passenger arrival)

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 Ticket Counter simulation (cont...)
▶ An object-oriented solution with multiple classes.
1. Passenger : store info related to a passenger.
2. TicketAgent : store info related to an agent.
3. TicketCounterSimulation : manages the actual simulation.

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 Deque Data Structure
▶ Deque or Double Ended Queue is a generalized version of Queue data structure that allows insert
and delete at both ends.

▶ Since Deque supports both stack and queue operations, it can be used as both.

▶ The Deque data structure supports clockwise and anticlockwise rotations in O(1) time which can
be useful in certain applications.

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 Deque Data Structure (cont...)
▶ Operations on Deque: Mainly the following four
basic operations are performed on deque:
• addFront(): Adds an item at the front of
Deque.
• addRear(): Adds an item at the rear of Deque.
• deleteFront(): Deletes an item from front of
Deque.
• deleteRear(): Deletes an item from rear of
Deque.
• getFront(): Gets the front item from queue.
• getRear(): Gets the last item from queue.
• isEmpty(): Checks whether Deque is empty or
not.
• isFull(): Checks whether Deque is full or not.

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 Deque Data Structure (cont...)
▶ queue operations - (addRear(),enqueue()), (deleteFront()), dequeue() (getFront(), peek())

▶ deleteRear(), addFront(), getRear()

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 Deque Data Structure (cont...)
▶ Code for : deleteRear(), addFront(), getRear()

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 Maze Problem
Maze Problem
▶ A Maze is given as N × N binary matrix of blocks where source block is maze[0][0] and destination
block is maze[N-1][N-1].
▶ A rat starts from source and has to reach the destination. The rat can move only in four directions:
upward, down, forward, backword .
▶ In the maze matrix, 1 means the block is a dead end and 0 means the block can be used in the
path from source to destination.

▶ The task is to check if there exists any path so that the rat can reach at the destination or not.
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 Maze Problem (cont...)
State Space Tree for Maze Problem

1. States: location of the rate in the maze at

(row, col)
2. Initial state: The first cell maze[0][0]
3. Actions: up, down, left, right
4. Transition model: upon an action new
location in maze[row][col]
5. Goal test: reaching at exit in maze[5][4]
6. Path cost: Each step costs 1, so the path cost
is the number of steps in the path.

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 Maze Problem (cont...)
▶ Depth First Search (DFS) with an explicit Stack
1. create a stack object
2. Choose the initial cell and push it onto the
stack
3. While the stack is not empty
3.1 Pop a cell from the stack and make it a
current cell
3.2 if the current cell is "exit", return True
(problem solved )
3.3 If the current cell has any
neighbours/children. make cells and push
them onto the stack
4. return False, (Could not find exit)

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 Maze Problem (cont...)
▶ Breadth First Search (BFS) with an explicit
Queue
1. create a queue object
2. Choose the initial cell and enqueue it into the
queue
3. While the queue is not empty
3.1 dequeue a cell from the queue and make it a
current cell
3.2 if the current cell is "exit", return True
(problem solved )
3.3 If the current cell has any
neighbours/children. make cells and enqueue
them into the queue
4. return False (Could not find exit)

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 Linear Data Structures (Summary)
Linear Data Structures (Summary)

▶ List is a more general data structure. Items can

be inserted and deleted at any position

▶ Deque, Queue and Stack are special cases of

List data structure

▶ Deque is a specific data structure. Items can

only be inserted and deleted at rear and front
ends

▶ Queue is a more specific data structure. Items

can only be inserted at rear end and can be
deleted at front end

▶ Stack is also a more specific data structure.

Items can be inserted and deleted one end

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 Priority Queue Data Structure
Priority Queue Data Structure
▶ In Priority Queue, every item has a priority associated with it. An element with high priority is
dequeued before an element with low priority. (It is a non-linear data structure)

▶ A priority queue is implemented using Heap.

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