LINKED LISTS
01
Objectives
Understand the basic concepts and architecture of linked lists
data structures
Comprehend he algorithms for insertion, deletion, traversal
and sorting operations
Implement the algorithms using dynamic allocation of storage
space
Describe relative advantages and disadvantages of linked
list data structures
02
Objectives
Understand the concepts and structure of circular linked list,
doubly linked lists, circular doubly linked list and multi lists
Learn about the basic operations associated with different
forms of the linked lists.
03
Introduction to Linked List
A linked list is a collection of data elements called nodes.
Each node consists of two parts called information field
and link field
First element in the list in referred to as head node.
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Introduction to Linked List
A list may store complex data types
First figure shows a lined list of three letter words
Second example shows linked list of records
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Storage Structure for Linked Lists
Storage structure describes physical arrangement of nodes
Suppose A and B are stored in locations 1000 and 2000 of
memory
Link pointer of A would contain storage address of B , which
is 2000
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Storage Structure for Linked Lists
Another storage structure for a linked list consisting of
records is also shown
Link pointer identifies physical address of a successor node
Storage space is made available out of a special memory
block called heap
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Operations on Linked Lists
Inserting of new data elements
Deleting the existing data
Printing the contents of a list
Sorting the list in the alphabetic or numeric order
Searching for a given data value in the list
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Inserting Nodes Into a Linked List
A new node can be inserted in the
At the beginning
In the middle
At the end
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Inserting Nodes At Front of List
To insert a node at the front , the following procedure is
followed:
Front is identified by head pointer
Its link pointer is set so that it points to the new node
New node is linked to the previous front node
Figure shows an example of list consisting of four nodes
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Inserting Nodes At Front of List
Figure shows the code fragment for the method InsFront,
which inserts a new node at the front
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Inserting Nodes At End of List
We use pointer which is set to the first node
Then the list is traversed until the last node is reached
A new node is created.
Link pointer of tail node of original list is reset to point to new
node
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Inserting Nodes At End of List
Figure shows the steps
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Inserting Nodes Into The Middle of List
New node can be inserted which either precedes or
succeeds a given node
To insert a middle node following steps are taken:
A temporary pointer is used to traverse the list
A new node is created
Linked pointer is rest to point to the new node
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Inserting Nodes Into The Middle of List
Procedure is depicted in Figure
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Deleting Nodes From A Linked List
Deletion can be performed to remove
Node at the front
Node in the middle
Tail node
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Deleting A Front Node
We create a pointer which identifies the first node
Head pointer is then reset to point to the next node
Using the pointer we remove the first node
Figure illustrates the procedure
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Deleting A Tail Node
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Deleting A Middle Node
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Traversing a Linked List
In traversing each node is visited exactly once.
Traversing is performed when we need to access information
contained in each of he node, for example, to print the list or
to determine size of the list.
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Traversing a Linked List
Figure shows a sample code for traversal of a list. It returns
the number of nodes in the list.
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Sorting Linked List
In sorting a list, we compare the contents of nodes and swap
them if necessary.
Remember, only the contents of nodes are swapped. The link
pointers of corresponding nodes remain unchanged.
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Sorting Linked List
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Variations of Linked List
Circular linked list
Doubly linked lists
Circular doubly linked lists
List containing multiple linked lists, commonly referred to as
multi list
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Circular Linked List
In a regular linked list, we cannot go back to any of the
preceding nodes
A circular linked list overcomes this limitation
In a circular linked list, the pointer in the tail node points to
the front node
The list has no front or tail node. To make entry into the
circular linked list, a reference node is used which is
identified by an external pointer.
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Circular Linked List
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Doubly Linked List
In the case of a doubly linked list, we can add or remove
elements from both sides.
Unlike a regular list, we can traverse in forward and
backward directions. In other words we can perform bi-
directional traversals
Insertion and deletion can be performed by adjusting
left and right link pointers
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Inserting A Node Into A Doubly Linked List
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Deleting A Node Into A Doubly Linked List
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Circular Doubly Linked List
It is a variant of the doubly linked list
In this case next link pointer in the tail node contains
pointer to the first element.
Previous link pointer in the first node points to the tail
node
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Multi List
We can combine a set of related list structures into an
integrated list called multi list
In multi lists, nodes of all the integrated list can be
accessed using link pointers
Previous link pointer in the first node points to the tail
node
For example, a list that contains student record and
another list that contains subjects can be combined into
single multi list
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Multi List
We can, for example, access all students that are
registered in a given subject.
Conversely, we can access the subjects in which a
particular student is registered,
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Multi List
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Advantages of Linked List
Size of storage space can be adjusted dynamically at run
time
Insertion and deletion operations are comparatively fast
List traversal is extremely fast
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Disadvantages of Linked List
There is an overhead of pointers which occupy additional
storage space
Elements of linked list cannot be accessed directly
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Summary
A linked list is a collection of data elements called
nodes.
Each node consists of two parts called information field
and link field
A value in the information field, called key, uniquely
identifies each node of the list
Key contains the storage address of the successor
node.
First element in the list in referred to as head node.
36
Summary
Operations on Linked Lists includes Inserting, deleting,
printing, traversing and searching
Variations of Linked list are Circular linked list, Doubly
linked lists, Circular doubly linked lists and Multi List
