Practice question · Multiple choice
Both a stack and a queue store items and hand them back one at a time. Why does reversing which end you remove from make one of them right for undo history and the other right for a print spooler?
Hints
- Undo should reverse the LAST thing you did. Printing should serve whoever waited longest.
- Both structures store the same items. Only the exit differs.
Show the answer
C. Because the removal order encodes a different relationship to time.
Why
The two differ in one decision, which end you remove from, and that decision encodes a policy about time. Last-in-first-out returns the most recent, which is precisely what undo means. Using a stack for a spooler would serve the newest job first, leaving a nine a.m. document unprinted all day. The choice is never about speed; both are constant time.
Practise Stacks and Queues
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