Ring Buffer
Domain: Data Structures
🎯 Motivation
Another name for a circular buffer. It uses modular arithmetic to wrap the index around, creating a logical ring from a linear array.
📋 Concrete Example
Index = (index + 1) % size. For size 4: 0 -> 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> 0 -> 1… The modulo operation creates the ring from a flat array.
🔗 Analogy
A clock with 12 positions. After 12, you do not go to 13; you wrap back to 1. The clock face is a ring buffer of 12 slots.