A Slightly Confused Applet
It is well known that a stack can be implemented by a pointer plus an array,
where the pointer is represented as a cell containing a natural number. The
Java applet below illustrates the behavior of both the stack abstraction and
this particular implementation. Here a stack of depth n has n in the cell, and
has its n elements in places 0,...,n-1 of the array. The two buttons call the PUSH
and POP methods.
This is an animate (i.e., interactive) beast, so you must TRY IT to
understand it. Can you see what's wrong with this applet? (Also, what about
the choice of colors?)
It is interesting to notice that there may also be elements above
the pointer, i.e., in a place greater than n-1. (This clever applet was written by Dr Grant
Malcolm to illustrate a behavioral correctness proof in the CafeOBJ library
website; thanks to him for permission to exhibit it in our zoo.)
To UCSZ homepage.
To Tatami project homepage.
To UCSD Meaning and Computation Lab homepage.
To my homepage.
10 January 1998; version of 23 January 2000.