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Tag: stack

In computer science, a stack is an area of memory that holds all local variables and parameters used by any function, and remembers the order in which functions are called so that function returns occur correctly. Each time a function is called, its local variables and parameters are “pushed onto” the stack. When the function returns, these locals and parameters are “popped.” Because of this, the size of a program’s stack fluctuates constantly as the program is running, but it has some maximum size. One way of describing the stack is as a last in, first out (LIFO) abstract data type and linear data structure. A stack can have any abstract data type as an element, but is characterized by two fundamental operations, called push and pop (or pull). The push operation adds a new item to the top of the stack, or initializes the stack if it is empty. If the stack is full and does not contain enough space to accept the given item, the stack is then considered to be in an overflow state. The…