Stacks and Queues

Question 1

Create a queue using 2 stacks (costly enqueue)

Answer 1

Method 1 (By making enQueue operation costly) This method makes sure that oldest entered element is always at the top of stack 1, so that deQueue operation just pops from stack1. To put the element at top of stack1, stack2 is used.

enQueue(q, x)

1) While stack1 is not empty, push everything from satck1 to stack2.
2) Push x to stack1 (assuming size of stacks is unlimited).
3) Push everything back to stack1.

deQueue(q)

1) If stack1 is empty then error
2) Pop an item from stack1 and return it

Question 2

create a queue using 2 stacks (costly dequeue – better method)

Answer 2

In this method, in en-queue operation, the new element is entered at the top of stack1. In de-queue operation, if stack2 is empty then all the elements are moved to stack2 and finally top of stack2 is returned.

enQueue(q, x)
1) Push x to stack1 (assuming size of stacks is unlimited).

deQueue(q)
1) If both stacks are empty then error.
2) If stack2 is empty
While stack1 is not empty, push everything from stack1 to stack2.
3) Pop the element from stack2 and return it.

Question 3

create a stack using 2 queues (costly pop)

Answer 3

Method 2 (By making pop operation costly)
In push operation, the new element is always enqueued to q1. In pop() operation, if q2 is empty then all the elements except the last, are moved to q2. Finally the last element is dequeued from q1 and returned.

push(s, x)
1) Enqueue x to q1 (assuming size of q1 is unlimited).

pop(s)
1) One by one dequeue everything except the last element from q1 and enqueue to q2.
2) Dequeue the last item of q1, the dequeued item is result, store it.
3) Swap the names of q1 and q2
4) Return the item stored in step 2.
// Swapping of names is done to avoid one more movement of all elements
// from q2 to q1.