Thread: N00B question about stacks

  1. #1
    Registered User
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    N00B question about stacks

    Alright I'm trying to figure out where a stack would be implemented in code. I've been searching around but cannot find a good reason "why" to use a stack. Can anybody help out? Thankx in advance

  2. #2
    unleashed alphaoide's Avatar
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    "Compilers often use stacks to perform sysntax analysis of language statementns--for example, for loops can contain if then statements that contain while loops that contain for loops. As a compiler works through such nested constructs, it "saves" information about what it is currently working on in a stack. When it fisnishes its work on the innermost construct, the compiler can "retrieve" its previous states from the stack, and pick up where it left off"

    C++ Plus Data Structures

  3. #3
    root
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    >I've been searching around but cannot find a good reason "why" to use a stack.
    If you need to simulate an all-you-can-eat buffet then both stacks and queues would be handy.

  4. #4
    Hardware Engineer
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    Your Internet browser forward & back buttons work like a stack. Every time you visit a new page, it gets added to the stack, then when you click the back-button, you work your way back down the stack. As you keep clicking the back-button, the last page (at the bottom of the stack) will be the first page visited. (First-In-Last-Out).

    [EDIT]:
    Computers use stacks internally too. When multiple levels of interrupts happen, a stack is used so the return-from-interrupts happen in the reverse order of the interrupts.

    Function calls are also handled with a stack. One function calls another function, which calls a third, etc. When these functions return, they have to return in reverse order.
    Last edited by DougDbug; 09-15-2003 at 12:15 PM.

  5. #5
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    I don't really remember the details, but I recently read up on Maze Generating algorithims and In each case either a stack or queue was used to store information about the nodes.

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