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An example of a non-essential operation is "top of stack", or "peek", which observes the top element without removing it from the stack. [18] Since this can be broken down into a "pop" followed by a "push" to return the same data to the stack, it is not considered an essential operation.
The name "peek" is similar to the basic "push" and "pop" operations on a stack, but the name for this operation varies depending on data type and language. Peek is generally considered an inessential operation, compared with the more basic operations of adding and removing data, and as such is not included in the basic definition of these data ...
As most early home computers used 8-bit processors, PEEK or POKE values are between 0 and 255. Setting or reading a 16-bit value on such machines requires two commands, such as PEEK (A) + 256 * PEEK (A + 1) to read a 16-bit integer at address A, and POKE A, V followed by POKE A + 1, V / 256 to store a 16-bit integer V at address A.
With a stack stored completely in RAM, this does implicit writes and reads of the in-memory stack: Load X, push to memory; Load 1, push to memory; Pop 2 values from memory, add, and push result to memory; for a total of 5 data cache references. The next step up from this is a stack machine or interpreter with a single top-of-stack register.
An abstract stack is a last-in-first-out structure, It is generally defined by three key operations: push, that inserts a data item onto the stack; pop, that removes a data item from it; and peek or top, that accesses a data item on top of the stack without removal.
The stack is often used to store variables of fixed length local to the currently active functions. Programmers may further choose to explicitly use the stack to store local data of variable length. If a region of memory lies on the thread's stack, that memory is said to have been allocated on the stack, i.e. stack-based memory allocation (SBMA).
This type of stack is also known as an execution stack, program stack, control stack, run-time stack, or machine stack, and is often shortened to simply the "stack". Although maintenance of the call stack is important for the proper functioning of most software , the details are normally hidden and automatic in high-level programming languages .
A queue is an example of a linear data structure, or more abstractly a sequential collection. Queues are common in computer programs, where they are implemented as data structures coupled with access routines, as an abstract data structure or in object-oriented languages as classes.