Stacks

There are several different types of processing data in a computer. One ways is known as a stack. A stack is like a list in that it has a set of functions and set of data. A stack can be thought of as a last in first out data structure. When I was taught about stacks I was told to think of it like a game of cards in which you add a card to the top and the next person can either add a card to the top of the deck or take the card that is on the top of the deck. The same thing happens with stacks of data. When data is placed on the stack it is known as pushing data onto the stack, and when data is removed from the stack it is known as popping the stack. The stack also can inherit all of the same functions of the linked list and then additionally requires a push function, pop function, display and top functions. The display function will be used to display all the elements of the stack. The top function reads the top of the data. One of the limitations of stacks are that you can only access the top element on the stack.