LinkedList.

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Introduction

In this article, I am going to discuss one of the most important Data Structures- Linked List.

I will be explaining about

 Linked List
 Advantage of Linked List
 Types of Linked List
 How to Create a Linked List
 Various operations on Linked list.

What is a Linked List?

Linked List is a linear data structure which consists of a group of nodes in a sequence. Each node
contains two parts.

 Data− Each node of a linked list can store a data.

 Address − Each node of a linked list contains an address to the next node, called "Next".

The first node of a Linked List is referenced by a pointer called Head

Advantages of Linked List

 They are dynamic in nature and allocate memory as and when required.
 Insertion and deletion is easy to implement.
 Other data structures such as Stack and Queue can also be implemented easily using
Linked List.
 It has faster access time and can be expanded in constant time without memory overhead.
 Since there is no need to define an initial size for a linked list, hence memory utilization
is effective.
 Backtracking is possible in doubly linked lists.

Types of Linked List

  Singly Linked List: Singly linked lists contain nodes which have a data part and an
address part, i.e., Next, which points to the next node in the sequence of nodes. The next
pointer of the last node will point to null.

 Doubly Linked List: In a doubly linked list, each node contains two links - the first link
points to the previous node and the next link points to the next node in the
sequence.The prev pointer of the first node and next pointer of the last node will point to
null.

 Circular Linked List: In the circular linked list, the next of the last node will point to the
first node, thus forming a circular chain.

 Doubly Circular Linked List: In this type of linked list, the next of the last node will
point to the first node and the previous pointer of the first node will point to the last node.

Creating a Linked List

The node of a singly linked list contains a data part and a link part. The link will contain the
address of next node and is initialized to null. So, we will create class definition of node for
singly linked list as follows -

1. internal class Node {

2. internal int data;
3. internal Node next;
4. public Node(int d) {
5. data = d;
6. next = null;
7. }
8. }

The node for a Doubly Linked list will contain one data part and two link parts - previous link
and next link. Hence, we create a class definition of a node for the doubly linked list as shown
below.

1. internal class DNode {

2. internal int data;
3. internal DNode prev;
4. internal DNode next;
5. public DNode(int d) {
6. data = d;
7. prev = null;
8. next = null;
9. }
10. }

Now, our node has been created, so, we will create a linked list class now. When a new Linked
List is instantiated, it just has the head, which is Null.The SinglyLinkedList class will contain
nodes of type Node class. Hence, SinglyLinkedList class definition will look like below.

1. internal class SingleLinkedList {

2. internal Node head;
3. }

The DoublyLinkedList class will contain nodes of type DNode class. Hence, DoublyLinkedList
class will look like this.

1. internal class DoubleLinkedList {

2. internal DNode head;
3. }

Various operations on Linked list

Insert data at front of the Linked List

 The first node, head, will be null when the linked list is instantiated. When we want to
add any node at the front, we want the head to point to it.
 We will create a new node. The next of the new node will point to the head of the Linked
list.
 The previous Head node is now the second node of Linked List because the new node is
added at the front. So, we will assign head to the new node.

1. internal void InsertFront(SingleLinkedList singlyList, int new_data) {

2. Node new_node = new Node(new_data);
3. new_node.next = singlyList.head;
4. singlyList.head = new_node;
5. }

To insert the data at front of the doubly linked list, we have to follow one extra step .i.e point the
previous pointer of head node to the new node. So, the method will look like this.

1. internal void InsertFront(DoubleLinkedList doubleLinkedList, int data) {

2. DNode newNode = new DNode(data);
3. newNode.next = doubleLinkedList.head;
4. newNode.prev = null;
5. if (doubleLinkedList.head != null) {
6. doubleLinkedList.head.prev = newNode;
7. }
8. doubleLinkedList.head = newNode;
9. }

Insert data at the end of Linked List

 If the Linked List is empty, then we simply add the new node as the Head of the Linked
List.
 If the Linked List is not empty, then we find the last node and make next of the last node
to the new node, hence the new node is the last node now.

1. internal void InsertLast(SingleLinkedList singlyList, int new_data)

2. {
3. Node new_node = new Node(new_data);
4. if (singlyList.head == null) {
5. singlyList.head = new_node;
6. return;
7. }
8. Node lastNode = GetLastNode(singlyList);
9. lastNode.next = new_node;
10. }
To insert the data at the end of a doubly linked list, we have to follow one extra step; .i.e., point
previous pointer of new node to the last node.so the method will look like this.

1. internal void InsertLast(DoubleLinkedList doubleLinkedList, int data) {

2. DNode newNode = new DNode(data);
3. if (doubleLinkedList.head == null) {
4. newNode.prev = null;
5. doubleLinkedList.head = newNode;
6. return;
7. }
8. DNode lastNode = GetLastNode(doubleLinkedList);
9. lastNode.next = newNode;
10. newNode.prev = lastNode;
11. }

The last node will be the one with its next pointing to null. Hence we will traverse the list until
we find the node with next as null and return that node as last node. Therefore the method to get
the last node will be

1. internal Node GetLastNode(SingleLinkedList singlyList) {

2. Node temp = singlyList.head;
3. while (temp.next != null) {
4. temp = temp.next;
5. }
6. return temp;
7. }

In the above mentioned method, pass doubleLinkedList object to get last node for Doubly
Linked List.

Insert data after a given node of Linked List

 We have to insert a new node after a given node.

 We will set the next of new node to the next of given node.
 Then we will set the next of given node to new node

So the method for singly Linked List will look like this,

1. internal void InsertAfter(Node prev_node, int new_data)

2. {
3. if (prev_node == null) {
4. Console.WriteLine("The given previous node Cannot be null");
5. return;
6. }
7. Node new_node = new Node(new_data);
8. new_node.next = prev_node.next;
 9. prev_node.next = new_node;
10. }

To perform this operation on doubly linked list we need to follow two extra steps

1. Set the previous of new node to given node.

2. Set the previous of the next node of given node to the new node.

So, the method for Doubly Linked List will look like this.

1. internal void InsertAfter(DNode prev_node, int data)

2. {
3. if (prev_node == null) {
4. Console.WriteLine("The given prevoius node cannot be null");
5. return;
6. }
7. DNode newNode = new DNode(data);
8. newNode.next = prev_node.next;
9. prev_node.next = newNode;
10. newNode.prev = prev_node;
11. if (newNode.next != null) {
12. newNode.next.prev = newNode;
13. }
14. }

Delete a node from Linked List using a given key value

 First step is to find the node having the key value.

 We will traverse through the Linked list, and use one extra pointer to keep track of the
previous node while traversing the linked list.
 If the node to be deleted is the first node, then simply set the Next pointer of the Head to
point to the next element from the Node to be deleted.
 If the node is in the middle somewhere, then find the node before it, and make the Node
before it point to the Node next to it.
 If the node to be deleted is last node, then find the node before it, and set it to point to
null.

So, the method for singly linked list will look like this,

1. internal void DeleteNodebyKey(SingleLinkedList singlyList, int key)

2. {
3. Node temp = singlyList.head;
4. Node prev = null;
5. if (temp != null && temp.data == key) {
6. singlyList.head = temp.next;
7. return;
 8. }
9. while (temp != null && temp.data != key) {
10. prev = temp;
11. temp = temp.next;
12. }
13. if (temp == null) {
14. return;
15. }
16. prev.next = temp.next;
17. }

To perform this operation on doubly linked list we don't need any extra pointer for previous node
as Doubly linked list already have a pointer to previous node.so the delete method will be,

1. internal void DeleteNodebyKey(DoubleLinkedList doubleLinkedList, int key)

2. {
3. DNode temp = doubleLinkedList.head;
4. if (temp != null && temp.data == key) {
5. doubleLinkedList.head = temp.next;
6. doubleLinkedList.head.prev = null;
7. return;
8. }
9. while (temp != null && temp.data != key) {
10. temp = temp.next;
11. }
12. if (temp == null) {
13. return;
14. }
15. if (temp.next != null) {
16. temp.next.prev = temp.prev;
17. }
18. if (temp.prev != null) {
19. temp.prev.next = temp.next;
20. }
21. }

Reverse a Singly Linked list

This is one of the most famous interview questions. We need to reverse the links of each node to
point to its previous node, and the last node should be the head node.This can be achieved by
iterative as well as recursive methods. Here I am explaining the iterative method.

 We need two extra pointers to keep track of previous and next node, initialize them to
null.
 Start traversing the list from head node to last node and reverse the pointer of one node in
each iteration.
  Once the list is exhausted, set last node as head node.

The method will look like this,

1. public void ReverseLinkedList(SingleLinkedList singlyList)

2. {
3. Node prev = null;
4. Node current = singlyList.head;
5. Node temp = null;
6. while (current != null) {
7. temp = current.next;
8. current.next = prev;
9. prev = current;
10. current = temp;
11. }
12. singlyList.head = prev;
13. }