# Balancing Parenthesis

### Procedure :&#x20;

* Iterate through the input equation character by character.
* If an opening bracket is found, push it to stack.
* If a closing bracket is found, pop from the stack and check if the popped bracket and the closing bracket match (are of the same type).
* If stack is empty and a closing bracket is found, the parenthesis are not balanced.
* If the stack is empty after iterating through all the characters, the parenthesis are balanced. Else, they are not balanced.

### C Function :

```c
// Function to check if pair is matching

int isMatchingPair(char a, char b) {

    if ( (a == '(' && b == ')') || (a == '[' && b == ']') || (a == '{' && b == '}') ) {
        return 1;
    } 
    return 0;

}

int isBalanced(char *equation) {

    // Creating a stack of max size equal to string length
    int len = strlen(equation);
    char stack[len];
    int top = -1;
    
    // Iterating through each character
    for (int i = 0; equation[i] != '\0'; i++) {
        // Push to stack if opening bracket
        if (equation[i] == '(' || equation[i] == '[' || equation[i] == '{') {
            top++;
            stack[top] = equation[i];
        } 
        // Pop from stack if closing bracket
        else if (equation[i] == ')' || equation[i] == ']' || equation[i] == '}') {
            char poppedBracket = stack[top];
            top--;
            // If pairs are not matching, return false.
            if (!isMatchingPair(poppedBracket, equation[i])) {
                return 0;
            }
        }
    }

    // If stack is empty, parenthesis are balanced.    
    if (top == -1) {
        return 1;
    }
    return 0;

}
```

Contributed by Nitin Ranganath


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://nitinranganath.gitbook.io/data-structures/stack/balancing-parenthesis.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.
