Queue
lastmod 2025-11-11created 2015-11-114 edits
A queue is one of the basic data structures in computing: a format that stores data in a FIFO (First In First Out) structure, where the data put in first comes out first. The English word queue can also mean a line of people standing in a row to buy tickets; think of the situation where the person who lined up first gets to leave first.
It is the opposite of a stack, where the data put in last comes out first.
It is used in situations where data needs to be processed in the order it was input, such as printer output handling, message handlers in window systems, and process management.
Operators
- Enqueue
- Back
- Front
- Dequeue
See also
- Queue implementation example
- Stack
- nq - Unix command-line queue tool