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LinkedLists Python

The document discusses different data structures including linked lists, stacks, queues, and their implementations. It covers topics like singly linked lists, doubly linked lists, circular doubly linked lists, big O time complexities of operations on linked lists, detecting loops, reversing lists, and using linked lists to implement stacks and queues. Stacks and queues are described as first-in-last-out and first-in-first-out data structures respectively. Examples of their uses and implementations using linked lists are provided.

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12 views

LinkedLists Python

The document discusses different data structures including linked lists, stacks, queues, and their implementations. It covers topics like singly linked lists, doubly linked lists, circular doubly linked lists, big O time complexities of operations on linked lists, detecting loops, reversing lists, and using linked lists to implement stacks and queues. Stacks and queues are described as first-in-last-out and first-in-first-out data structures respectively. Examples of their uses and implementations using linked lists are provided.

Uploaded by

Angular Learner
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Linked Lists, Stacks,

and Queues
Dr. Baldassano
[email protected]
Yu’s Elite Education
Last week recap

 Heaps
 Heap structure and ordering
 Adding elements
 Removing elements
 Using as priority queue
 Heapsort
Problems with arrays

 Traditional arrays/lists store data in


consecutive slots in memory
 Good: can easily calculate where element i
can be found, as (begin + i*datasize)
 Bad: Inserting or deleting elements requires
moving O(N) elements (unless at end)
 Python example
Linked lists

 Linked lists do not store elements


consecutively in memory
 Each element contains some data, and the
memory address of the next element

 http://visualgo.net/list.html
Big-O for linked lists

 Inserting or deleting a node (assuming we


know memory address of insertion/deletion
point) is O(1) (vs. O(n) for array)
 Indexing (finding nth piece of data) is O(n)
(vs. O(1) for array)
Implementing linked list

 Node structure
 Data field
 Pointer to next node (NULL if end of list)
 Head pointer to first node

 Example in python
Reversing linked list

 Can we reverse all links in a linked list in a


single pass?
Detecting loops in a linked
list
 How can we check that our list doesn’t have
any loops?
 Traverse until end?
 Mark each node?
 Check node against entire list so far?
 Works, but O(N2)
 Floyd’s tortoise and hare
 http://visualgo.net/cyclefinding.html
Problems with one-
directional links
 We can only iterate through the list in one
direction
 Even if given the memory address of a node
to delete, we’d have to iterate through the
list to find the previous node

 Solution: Doubly-linked lists


Doubly-linked lists

 Every node contains data, and pointers to


both previous and next nodes
 Have head and tail pointers to the front and
back of the list

 Example in python (for show and insert)


Circular doubly-linked lists

 We can get rid of some of the special cases at


the ends of the list by connecting the head
and tail nodes to each other

 Example in python (for show and insert)


Stacks and Queues

 Linked lists are often used to implement two


other data structures: stacks and queues
 Both allow us to add or remove one element
at a time
 Queues: First-in-first-out (FIFO)
 Stacks: First-in-last-out (FILO)
Queues

 Uses of queues?
 Website requests
 Simulations or game engines
 Expanding algorithms like Dijkstra's
Stacks

 Uses of stacks?
 Recursive algorithms like mergesort
 Backtracking algorithms like constraint
satisfaction (e.g. Sudoku)
 Compiling and running programs
Implementing Queue with
linked list
 Why implement with linked list?
 Enqueue operation:
 Add node at head
 Dequeue operation
 Remove and return node at tail
 http://visualgo.net/list.html
Implementing Stack with
linked list
 Why implement with linked list?
 Push operation:
 Add node at head
 Pop operation:
 Remove and return node at head
 http://visualgo.net/list.html
Stack example:
Reverse Polish Notation
 Traditional math notation: requires knowing
order of operations, using parentheses
7+(1+2)*5 = 22
 Reverse Polish notation avoids these issues by
using a stack
712+5*+
 Implement in python
Assignment: Median of sorted
circularly linked list
 Sorted singly-linked circular list:

 Given a reference to some node, find median


of the list
 Note: need to handle all-equal special case

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