Interleave the first half of the queue with second half

Difficulty Level : Medium
Last Updated : 04 Oct, 2021

Given a queue of integers of even length, rearrange the elements by interleaving the first half of the queue with the second half of the queue. We are allowed to use only the queue data structure.
Examples:

Input :  1 2 3 4
Output : 1 3 2 4

Input : 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Output : 11 16 12 17 13 18 14 19 15 20

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Create two auxiliary queues q1 and q2. Insert first half in one queue q1 and another half in another queue q2. Now insert elements back to given queue by picking them from q1 and q2 alternatively.

CPP

// CPP program to interleave queue elements
// using only queue data structure.
#include <bits/stdc++.h>
using namespace std;
 
void interleave(queue<int> &q)
{
    queue<int> q1, q2;
 
    int n = q.size();
 
    // Insert first half in q1
    for (int i = 0; i < n / 2; i++) {
        q1.push(q.front());
        q.pop();
    }
 
    // insert second half in q2
    for (int i = 0; i < n / 2; i++) {
        q2.push(q.front());
        q.pop();
    }
    
    // Insert elements of q1 and q2 back
    // to q in alternate order.
    for (int i = 0; i < n/2; i++) {
        q.push(q1.front());
        q1.pop();
        q.push(q2.front());
        q2.pop();
    }
}
 
// Driver code
int main()
{
    // Creating an example queue with 10
    // elements.
    queue<int> q;
    for (int i = 1; i <= 10; i++)
        q.push(i); 
 
    interleave(q);
 
    // Printing queue elements
    int n = q.size();
    for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
        cout << q.front() << " ";
        q.pop();
    }
}

Java

// Java program to interleave queue elements
// using only queue data structure.
import java.util.LinkedList;
import java.util.Queue;
 
public class GFG {
 
    static void interleave(Queue<Integer> q)
    {
        Queue<Integer> q1, q2;
        q1 = new LinkedList<Integer>();
        q2 = new LinkedList<Integer>();
 
        int n = q.size();
 
        // Insert first half in q1
        for (int i = 0; i < n / 2; i++) {
            q1.add(q.peek());
            q.poll();
        }
 
        // insert second half in q2
        for (int i = 0; i < n / 2; i++) {
            q2.add(q.peek());
            q.poll();
        }
 
        // Insert elements of q1 and q2 back
        // to q in alternate order.
        for (int i = 0; i < n / 2; i++) {
            q.add(q1.peek());
            q1.poll();
            q.add(q2.peek());
            q2.poll();
        }
    }
 
    // Driver code
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        // Creating an example queue with 10
        // elements.
        Queue<Integer> q = new LinkedList<Integer>();
        for (int i = 1; i <= 10; i++)
            q.add(i);
 
        interleave(q);
 
        // Printing queue elements
        int n = q.size();
        for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
            System.out.print(q.peek() + " ");
            q.poll();
        }
    }
}
 
// This code is contributed by jainlovely450

Python3

# Python3 program to interleave the first
# half of the queue with the second half
from queue import Queue
 
# Function to interleave the queue
def interLeaveQueue(q):
 
    # Initialize an empty stack of int type
    q1 = Queue()
    q2 = Queue()
    halfSize = int(q.qsize() / 2)
 
    # Insert first half in q1
    for i in range(halfSize):
        q1.put(q.queue[0])
        q.get()
 
    # Insert second half in q2
    for i in range(halfSize):
        q2.put(q.queue[0])
        q.get()
 
    # Insert elements of q1 and q2 back
    # to q in alternate order
    for i in range(halfSize):
        q.put(q1.queue[0])
        q1.get()
        q.put(q2.queue[0])
        q2.get()
 
# Driver Code
if __name__ == '__main__':
    q = Queue()
    q.put(1)
    q.put(2)
    q.put(3)
    q.put(4)
    q.put(5)
    q.put(6)
    q.put(7)
    q.put(8)
    q.put(9)
    q.put(10)
    interLeaveQueue(q)
    length = q.qsize()
    for i in range(length):
        print(q.queue[0], end=" ")
        q.get()
 
# This code is contributed by jainlovely450

Output:

1 6 2 7 3 8 4 9 5 10

Video Contributed by Parul Shandilya

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