Introduction to Stacks

In this lesson, we will explore the concept of stacks and their applications in various fields, including robotics and computer vision.

A stack is a linear data structure that follows the LIFO (Last In, First Out) principle. Think of it as a stack of books where you can only add or remove books from the top. The element that is added last is the first one to be removed.

Stacks have several real-life applications that align with your interests in robotics and computer vision. For example, you can use a stack to simulate the behavior of robotic arms that stack objects. The last object placed on top of the stack is the first one to be removed, just like with a stack data structure.

Let's take a look at the C++ code snippet below, which demonstrates the implementation of a stack using an array:

1#include <iostream>
2using namespace std;
3
4const int MAX_SIZE = 100;
5
6class Stack {
7private:
8    int top;
9    int stack_array[MAX_SIZE];
10
11public:
12    Stack() {
13        top = -1;
14    }
15
16    bool is_empty() {
17        return (top == -1);
18    }
19
20    bool is_full() {
21        return (top == MAX_SIZE - 1);
22    }
23
24    void push(int value) {
25        if (is_full()) {
26            cout << "Stack overflow!" << endl;
27            return;
28        }
29
30        stack_array[++top] = value;
31    }
32
33    int pop() {
34        if (is_empty()) {
35            cout << "Stack underflow!" << endl;
36            return -1;
37        }
38
39        return stack_array[top--];
40    }
41};
42
43int main() {
44    Stack stack;
45
46    // Pushing elements onto the stack
47    stack.push(10);
48    stack.push(20);
49    stack.push(30);
50
51    // Popping elements from the stack
52    cout << stack.pop() << endl;
53    cout << stack.pop() << endl;
54    cout << stack.pop() << endl;
55
56    return 0;
57}

In the code snippet above, we define a Stack class that uses an array to implement the stack data structure. The push function adds an element to the top of the stack, and the pop function removes and returns the top element from the stack.

Now that you have a basic understanding of stacks and their applications, let's move on to exploring more advanced stack operations.

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#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

​

int main() {

    // Stack implementation here

    return 0;

}