
Data Structure

This illustrates a data structure, a means of storing data within a program.

You may see other such structures in the Data Structures category.
 Illustration of FIFO behavior
Task

Implement a FIFO queue.

Elements are added at one side and popped from the other in the order of insertion.



Operations:

   push   (aka enqueue)    - add element
   pop     (aka dequeue)    - pop first element
   empty                             - return truth value when empty


Errors:

   handle the error of trying to pop from an empty queue (behavior depends on the language and platform)


See

   Queue/Usage   for the built-in FIFO or queue of your language or standard library.


See also

 Array
 Associative array: Creation, Iteration
 Collections
 Compound data type
 Doubly-linked list: Definition, Element definition, Element insertion, List Traversal, Element Removal
 Linked list
 Queue: Definition, Usage
 Set
 Singly-linked list: Element definition, Element insertion, List Traversal, Element Removal
 Stack


rebol [
    Title: "FIFO"
    URL: http://rosettacode.org/wiki/FIFO
]
 
; Define fifo class:
 
fifo: make object! [
    queue: copy []
    push:  func [x][append queue x]
    pop:   func [/local x][   ; Make 'x' local so it won't pollute global namespace.
        if empty [return none]
        x: first queue  remove queue  x]
    empty: does [empty? queue]
]
 
; Create and populate a FIFO:
 
q: make fifo []
q/push 'a
q/push 2
q/push USD$12.34              ; Did I mention that REBOL has 'money!' datatype?
q/push [Athos Porthos Aramis] ; List elements pushed on one by one.
q/push [[Huey Dewey Lewey]]   ; This list is preserved as a list.
 
; Dump it out, with narrative:
 
print rejoin ["Queue is "  either q/empty [""]["not "]  "empty."]
while [not q/empty][print ["  " q/pop]]
print rejoin ["Queue is "  either q/empty [""]["not "]  "empty."]
print ["Trying to pop an empty queue yields:" q/pop]