Welcome to our exploration of queues and deques. These structures frequently surface in everyday programming, managing everything from system processes to printer queues. In this lesson, our goal is to understand and implement queues and deques in JavaScript using arrays. Let's dive in!
A queue, similar to waiting in line at a store, operates on the "First In, First Out" or FIFO
principle. JavaScript arrays allow us to implement the functionality of queues using the push
method for adding items and the shift
method for removing items.
The dequeued item, "Apple"
, was the first item we inserted, demonstrating the FIFO
principle of queues.
Before trying to remove items from our queue, let's ensure it is not empty. This precaution will prevent runtime errors when attempting to dequeue from an empty queue.
Queues are widely used in scenarios where we need to manage tasks in the order they are received. A common practical use case is in handling printer tasks, where documents are printed in the order they are added to the queue.
