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| 1 | +## Purpose |
| 2 | +I recently came across this interview question |
| 3 | +> Implement a queue with 2 `Stack`s. Your queue should have an `enqueue` and a `dequeue` function. |
| 4 | +Assume you already have a `Stack` implementation |
| 5 | + |
| 6 | +## Discussion |
| 7 | +The way I thought about this problem is that one `Stack` would keep track of the input elements (i.e. what's been enqueued) |
| 8 | +and at some point, this `Stack` would transfer its elements to the second `Stack`. |
| 9 | + |
| 10 | +By `pop`ping the results of the first `Stack` onto the the second `Stack`, the second `Stack` now represents the elements, ordered |
| 11 | +by when they were first inputted into the queue. |
| 12 | + |
| 13 | +By `pop`ping off this second `Stack`, elements are now dequeued in the order that they were enqueued. |
| 14 | + |
| 15 | +What happens in the case where some elements are enqueued, an element is dequeued, and then a bunch of elements are enqueued? |
| 16 | +When does the transferring of elements from the first `Stack` to the second take place? |
| 17 | + |
| 18 | +In order to preserve the order of elements, the transfer of elements doesn't take place until the second `Stack` is empty. |
| 19 | +Thus, when dequeueing, first check that the second `Stack` is empty. If it isn't, then transfer the elements from the first `Stack` |
| 20 | +to the second. |
| 21 | + |
| 22 | +For example, take the case where `1`, `2`, and `3` are enqueued. |
| 23 | +1. The first `Stack` looks like this: `| 1 | 2 | 3|`. |
| 24 | +2. The second `Stack` is empty. |
| 25 | +3. When `dequeue` is called, `3`, `2`, and `1` are popped off the first `Stack` in that order. |
| 26 | +4. Now the first `Stack` is empty |
| 27 | +5. The second `Stack` looks like `| 3 | 2 | 1 |`. |
| 28 | +6. Since `dequeue` was called, we `pop` the second `Stack` (bye bye `1`) and now it looks like `| 3 | 2 |`. |
| 29 | +7. Now suppose `4` is enqueued. |
| 30 | +8. The first `Stack` is no longer empty - it looks like: `| 4 |`. |
| 31 | +9. Now suppose `dequeue` is called again - we can't immediately transfer `4` from the first `Stack` to the second since |
| 32 | + the second `Stack` would look like `| 3 | 2 | 4 |`. |
| 33 | +10. Thus, we have to wait until all elements have been popped off the second `Stack` to transfer the elements from the first `Stack`. |
| 34 | + |
| 35 | + |
| 36 | +## Implementation |
| 37 | + |
| 38 | +<!-- language: lang-java --!> |
| 39 | + |
| 40 | + import java.util.NoSuchElementException; |
| 41 | + import java.util.Stack; |
| 42 | + |
| 43 | + public class TwoStackQueue<T> { |
| 44 | + private final Stack<T> input = new Stack<>(); |
| 45 | + private final Stack<T> output = new Stack<>(); |
| 46 | + |
| 47 | + public void enqueue(T data) { |
| 48 | + input.add(data); |
| 49 | + } |
| 50 | + |
| 51 | + public T dequeue() { |
| 52 | + if (isEmpty()) { |
| 53 | + throw new NoSuchElementException("Unable to dequeue on empty queue"); |
| 54 | + } |
| 55 | + |
| 56 | + transfer(); |
| 57 | + |
| 58 | + return output.pop(); |
| 59 | + } |
| 60 | + |
| 61 | + public boolean isEmpty() { |
| 62 | + return input.empty() && output.empty(); |
| 63 | + } |
| 64 | + |
| 65 | + public T peek() { |
| 66 | + if (isEmpty()) { |
| 67 | + throw new NoSuchElementException("Unable to peek on empty queue"); |
| 68 | + } |
| 69 | + |
| 70 | + transfer(); |
| 71 | + |
| 72 | + return output.peek(); |
| 73 | + } |
| 74 | + |
| 75 | + private void transfer() { |
| 76 | + if (output.empty()) { |
| 77 | + while (!input.empty()) { |
| 78 | + output.push(input.pop()); |
| 79 | + } |
| 80 | + } |
| 81 | + } |
| 82 | + } |
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