How to implement 3 stacks with one array?

Question

Sometimes, I come across the following interview question: How to implement 3 stacks with one array ? Of course, any static allocation is not a solution.

Answer 1

As long as you try to arrange all items from one stack together at one "end" of the array, you're lacking space for the third stack.

However, you could "intersperse" the stack elements. Elements of the first stack are at indices i * 3, elements of the second stack are at indices i * 3 + 1, elements of the third stack are at indices i * 3 + 2 (where i is an integer).

+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+..
| A1 : B1 : C1 | A2 : B2 : C2 |    : B3 | C3 |    : B4 :    |    :  
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+..
                  ^                        ^         ^
                  A´s top                  C´s top   B´s top

Of course, this scheme is going to waste space, especially when the stacks have unequal sizes. You could create arbitrarily complex schemes similar to the one described above, but without knowing any more constraints for the posed question, I'll stop here.

Update:

Due to the comments below, which do have a very good point, it should be added that interspersing is not necessary, and may even degrade performance when compared to a much simpler memory layout such as the following:

+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+..
| A1 : A2 :    :    :    | B1 : B2 : B3 : B4 :    | C1 : C2 : C3 :  
+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+..
       ^                                  ^                    ^
       A´s top                            B´s top              C´s top

i.e. giving each stack it's own contiguous block of memory. If the real question is indeed to how to make the best possible use of a fixed amount of memory, in order to not limit each stack more than necessary, then my answer isn't going to be very helpful.

In that case, I'd go with @belisarius' answer: One stack goes to the "bottom" end of the memory area, growing "upwards"; another stack goes to the "top" end of the memory area, growing "downwards", and one stack is in the middle that grows in any direction but is able to move when it gets too close to one of the other stacks.