17.7. Stacks
A stack is a constrained version of a linked list—new nodes can be added to and removed from a stack only at the top. [Note: A stack does not have to be implemented using a linked list.] For this reason, a stack is referred to as a last-in, first-out (LIFO) data structure. The link member in the bottom (i.e., last) node of the stack is set to null to indicate the bottom of the stack.
The primary methods for manipulating a stack are push and pop. Method push adds a new node to the top of the stack. Method pop removes a node from the top of the stack and returns the data from the popped node.
Stacks have many interesting applications. For example, when a program calls a method, the called method must know how to return to its caller, ...
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