Data Structures and Algorithms

CS F211
Vaibhav Soni
Assistant Professor
BITS Pilani Department of Computer Science and Information Systems
Pilani Campus BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus
 BITS Pilani
Pilani Campus

Agenda: Queue ADT

Introduction
• Queue is a linear data structure in which the operations are
performed based on FIFO (First-In-First-Out) principle. Hence,
element inserted first will be deleted first.
• In queue, data elements are inserted at one end, called the rear
and deleted from another end, called the front of the list.
• Two basic operations:
– “Enqueue” operation is used to insert an element at the rear.
– “Dequeue” operation is used to delete an element from the
front.

Department of CSIS, BITS Pilani (Pilani Campus)

Introduction (cont.)
• For example: line in a library, the first one in the line is the
first one to be served. Just like a queue.

Department of CSIS, BITS Pilani (Pilani Campus)

Introduction (cont.)
• Auxiliary queue operations:
– front(): returns the element at the front without removing it
– size(): returns an integer value that indicates the number of
elements stored in the queue
– isEmpty(): returns a Boolean value that indicates whether the
queue is empty
• Applications:
– In real life scenario, Call Center phone systems uses Queues to
hold people calling them in an order, until a service
representative is free
– Access to shared resources (e.g., printer)
– Handling of interrupts in real-time systems. The interrupts are
handled in the same order as they arrive i.e., FCFS
Department of CSIS, BITS Pilani (Pilani Campus)
Algorithms for Enqueue and
Dequeue Operations
Enqueue operation:
• Step 1 - Check whether queue is FULL. (rear == MAX-1)
• Step 2 - If it is FULL, then display "Queue is FULL…".
• Step 3 – else check whether (front == -1), if it is true, then set both front
and rear to 0 and set queue[rear] = value. Otherwise, increment rear value
by one (rear++) and set queue[rear] = value.
Dequeue operation:
• Step 1 - Check whether queue is EMPTY. (front == -1 ||front == rear + 1)
• Step 2 - If it is EMPTY, then display "Queue is EMPTY…".
• Step 3 - else display queue[front] as deleted element and increment the
front value by one (front ++) Then check whether ( front == rear +1 ), if it
TRUE, then set both front and rear to '-1' ( front = rear = -1 ).

Department of CSIS, BITS Pilani (Pilani Campus)

Queue variations
The standard queue data structure has the following variations:
• Double-ended queue (DEQUE):
– In a double-ended queue (Deque), elements can be inserted and
deleted from both the front and back of the queue.
• Circular queue:
– A circular queue is an improvement over the
standard queue structure, which overcomes
some drawback of the normal queue. It is
also called ‘Ring Buffer’.
– In a normal Queue, we can insert elements
until queue becomes full. But once queue
becomes full, we can not insert the next
element even if there is a space in front of
queue.

Department of CSIS, BITS Pilani (Pilani Campus)

/* Insert an element to the CQueue*/

void enQueue(int item)

{
if((front == 0 && rear == MAX-1) || (front == rear+1))
{
printf("Overflow");
return;
}
if(front == -1)
{
front = 0; rear = 0;
}
else
{
rear = (rear + 1) % MAX;
}
cqarray [rear] = item ;
}
/* Delete an element from the CQueue*/

int deQueue()
{
if(front == -1)
{
printf("Underflow");
return ;
}

int element = cqarray[front]);

if(front == rear)
{
front = rear = -1;
}
else
{
front = (front + 1) % MAX;
}
return element;
}
Query…?