Uses of Stacks

Stacks are used in many places in computer science:

• Most programming languages keep variable values on a runtime stack.

• The SPARC architecture has a register file stack in the CPU.

• Operating systems keep the state of interrupted processes on a stack.

• A web browser keeps a stack of previously visited web pages; this stack is popped when the Back button is clicked.

• Compilers use a stack when parsing programming languages.

• In general, a stack is needed to traverse a tree.