Editing Double-ended queue (section)

{{Short description|Abstract data type}}
{{redirect-distinguish2|Deque|dequeueing, a [[queue (abstract data type)|queue]] operation}}
{{Distinguish|Double-ended priority queue}}
{{tooshort|date=April 2022}}
{{technical|date=April 2022}}

In [[computer science]], a '''double-ended queue''' (abbreviated to '''deque''', {{IPAc-en|d|ɛ|k}} {{Respell|DEK}}<ref>Jesse Liberty; Siddhartha Rao; Bradley Jones. ''C++ in One Hour a Day, Sams Teach Yourself'', Sixth Edition. Sams Publishing, 2009. {{ISBN|0-672-32941-7}}. Lesson 18: STL Dynamic Array Classes, pp. 486.</ref>) is an [[abstract data type]] that generalizes a [[queue (data structure)|queue]], for which elements can be added to or removed from either the front (head) or back (tail).<ref>[[Donald Knuth]]. ''[[The Art of Computer Programming]]'', Volume 1: ''Fundamental Algorithms'', Third Edition. Addison-Wesley, 1997. {{ISBN|0-201-89683-4}}. Section 2.2.1: Stacks, Queues, and Deques, pp. 238&ndash;243.</ref> It is also often called a '''head-tail linked list''', though properly this refers to a specific [[data structure]] ''[[#Implementations|implementation]]'' of a deque (see below).