Implementing Stack with Python

algorithm, data-structures, python, stack

Solution

I corrected a few problems below. Also, a 'stack', in abstract programming terms, is usually a collection where you add and remove from the top, but the way you implemented it, you're adding to the top and removing from the bottom, which makes it a queue.

class myStack:
     def __init__(self):
         self.container = []  # You don't want to assign [] to self - when you do that, you're just assigning to a new local variable called `self`.  You want your stack to *have* a list, not *be* a list.

     def isEmpty(self):
         return self.size() == 0   # While there's nothing wrong with self.container == [], there is a builtin function for that purpose, so we may as well use it.  And while we're at it, it's often nice to use your own internal functions, so behavior is more consistent.

     def push(self, item):
         self.container.append(item)  # appending to the *container*, not the instance itself.

     def pop(self):
         return self.container.pop()  # pop from the container, this was fixed from the old version which was wrong

     def peek(self):
         if self.isEmpty():
             raise Exception("Stack empty!")
         return self.container[-1]  # View element at top of the stack

     def size(self):
         return len(self.container)  # length of the container

     def show(self):
         return self.container  # display the entire stack as list


s = myStack()
s.push('1')
s.push('2')
print(s.pop())
print(s.show())

Problem

Original source