CS201 - Spring 2014 - Class 21

  • administrative
       - no class on Friday

  • look at StackVQueue code
       - what will testStack and testQueue print out?
          - testStack
             daikon
             carrot
             banana
             apple

             (LIFO: last in first out)
          - testQueue
             apple
             banana
             carrot
             daikon

             (FIFO: first in first out)
       - What types of objects can we pass to testStack?
          - Anything that implements the Stack interface (ArrayListStack or LinkedStack)
       - Will the answer change depending on what we pass in?
          - Not if we've implemented them correctly :)
          - They both are stacks, just different ways of representing them
       - What types of objects can we pass to testLinear?
          - Anything that implements the Linear interface
          - All of our stacks and queue implement this interface
          - this allows us to pass either a stack OR a queue!

  • stacks
       - Last In First Out (LIFO)
       - two basic operations: push and pop
          - push adds another item on to the top of the stack
          - pop removes the item on the top of the stack
       - how can we implement them?
          - ArrayList
          - Singly linked list
       - what are they used for?
          - run-time (or call) stack example
             - we can write a simple method sum and follow it through the call-stack using the debugger
             public static int sum(int n){
                String temp = "Num: " + n;
                System.out.println(temp);
          
                if( n <= 1 ){
                   return 1;
                }else{
                   return n + sum(n-1);
                }
             }
          - searching
          - parsing (linguistics, code)

       - java.util.Stack (http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/Stack.html)

  • queues
       - if you're from the UK, you call a "line" (like waiting in line) a queue
       - First In First Out (FIFO)
       - two basic operations: enqueue and dequeue
          - enqueue adds another item on the the end of the queue
          - dequeue removes an item from the front of the queue
       - notice that like a stack the only way we manipulate the data is by adding and removing items, the difference is where we add and remove the items
       - how can we implement them?
          - ArrayList
          - LinkedList
          - Array?
             - what if we wanted to implement it using an array, with the additional knowledge that we know the largest capacity required?
             - keep track of where our head is and where our tail is and have the data wrap around at the end of the array
                - always add at the tail
                - always remove from the head
             - is there an easy way to calculate indices?
                - use modular arithmetic!
                - if we want to increment the head, for example:
                   - instead of: headIndex++
                   - headIndex = (headIndex + 1) % data.length

       - what are they used for?
          - scheduling tasks
             - which process should run next
          - modeling real world phenomena (lines show up in lots of places)
          - searching

  • search
       - basic search framework
          - we have places/items
          - given an item, we can find out what items are adjacent
       - what types of things might we search?
          - maps
          - web
          - social networks (six degrees of Kevin Bacon game)
       - look at the basic search method in Search code
          - keep track of two sets of items
             - pending: those those things that we know about, but haven't visited yet
             - visited: those that we have already visited (why do we need this?)
          - the only requirement we have for the items we're traversing is that they specify their neighbors
             - look at Searchable interface

          - Basic algorithm:
             as long as we still have items to visit
                get the next item from pending

                if we haven't visited it already:
                   add it to visited
                   add all of it's neighbors

             - why do we have to check in two places if visited contains the item?
                
       - what happens if we use a stack?
          - depth first search (DFS)
          - we go further and further out, until we reach an ending and only then do we go back and try the next immediate neighbor from our starting point
       - what happens if we use a queue?
          - breadth first search (BFS)
          - we explore all of the immediate neighbors first, before going any further
          - can be seen as exploring one level out at a time
          - if we're looking for something, then it will find the shortest path
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