Applications of Stack
In this lecture, the following topics are
covered:
Applications of stack
Reversing a List problem
Recursion
1. Applications of Stack
In this section we will discuss typical problems where stacks can be easily
applied for a simple and efficient solution.
The following are some of the problems where the stack can be applied:
o Reversing a list
o Parentheses checker
o Conversion of an infix expression into a postfix expression
o Evaluation of a postfix expression
o Conversion of an infix expression into a prefix expression
o Evaluation of a prefix expression
o Recursion
However, only reversing a list and recursion are introduced here.
2. Reversing a List
A list of numbers can be reversed by reading each number from an array starting
from the first index and pushing it on a stack. Once all the numbers have been
read, the numbers can be popped one at a time and then stored in the array
starting from the first index. The following program shows how to use the stack
data structure to reverse an n integer numbers stored in an array. Notice that
pushing first these numbers into the stack and then popping them out can
accomplish this task.
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3. Recursion
Recursion is an implicit application of the stack.
A recursive function is defined as a function that calls itself to solve a smaller
version of its task until a final call is made which does not require a call to
itself.
Since a recursive function repeatedly calls itself, it makes use of the system
stack to temporarily store the return address and local variables of the calling
function.
Every recursive solution has two major cases. They are:
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o Base case, in which the problem is simple enough to be solved
directly without making any further calls to the same function.
o Recursive case, in which first the problem at hand is divided into
simpler sub-parts. Second, the function calls itself but with sub-parts of
the problem obtained in the first step. Third, the result is obtained by
combining the solutions of simpler sub-parts.
o Therefore, recursion is defining large and complex problems in terms
of smaller and more easily solvable problems. In recursive functions, a
complex problem is defined in terms of simpler problems and the
simplest problem is given explicitly.
To understand recursive functions, let us take an example of calculating
factorial of a number. To calculate n!, we multiply the number with factorial of
the number that is 1 less than that number. In other words, n! = n × (n–1)!.
The series of problems and solutions can be given as shown in Fig. 7.27.
.
Now if you look at the problem carefully, you can see that we can write a
recursive function to calculate the factorial of a number.
Every recursive function must have a base case and a recursive case. For the
factorial function:
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o Base case is when n = 1, because if n = 1, the result will be 1 as 1! = 1.
o Recursive case of the factorial function will call itself but with a smaller
value of n. This case can be given as:
Look at the following program which calculates the factorial of a number
recursively
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