
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


-module(fifo).
-export([new/0, push/2, pop/1, empty/1]).
 
new() -> {fifo, [], []}.
 
push({fifo, In, Out}, X) -> {fifo, [X|In], Out}.
 
pop({fifo, [], []}) -> erlang:error('empty fifo');
pop({fifo, In, []}) -> pop({fifo, [], lists:reverse(In)});
pop({fifo, In, [H|T]}) -> {H, {fifo, In, T}}.
 
empty({fifo, [], []}) -> true;
empty({fifo, _, _}) -> false.