Data Structures - Queues For Beginners

Under Construction

In this tutorial we are going to look at the queue data structure. We’ll take a look at how this data structure can be used for various tasks and the various sort of things you can do with queues.

Introduction

The queue data structure is typically used in scenarios where you want things to be processed in the same order that they were inputted into a system.

For example, imagine you had a system that dealt with user registrations to your site. You could enqueue any new requests from users to register to your site into a queue. Worker threads within your application would then monitor this queue and process new registrations as they come in.

>>> import queue
>>> my_q = queue.Queue()
>>> my_q.put('first')
>>> my_q.put('second')
>>> my_q.put('third')
>>> my_q.get()
'first'
>>> my_q.get()
'second'
>>> my_q.get()
'third'

Conclusion

Hopefully you found this article on the queue data structure useful! If you require further help then please feel free to let me know in the comments section below or by tweeting me: @Elliot_f.