Linked Lists

In the world of programming, arrays are commonly used to store a collection of elements. However, arrays have a fixed size, which means they cannot easily accommodate changes in the number of elements. This is where linked lists come in.

Introduction to Linked Lists

A linked list is a linear data structure that consists of a sequence of nodes, where each node contains a data element and a reference (or link) to the next node in the sequence. Unlike arrays, linked lists do not require contiguous memory allocation.

Advantages of Linked Lists over Arrays

Linked lists offer several advantages over arrays:

1. Dynamic Size: Linked lists can dynamically grow and shrink in size, as new elements can be easily added or removed.
2. Efficient Insertion and Deletion: Insertion and deletion operations are more efficient in linked lists compared to arrays, as it only requires updating the references in the nodes.
3. Flexibility: Linked lists can accommodate different types of data elements and do not require a fixed size.

Visualizing Linked Lists

To visualize a linked list, imagine a chain where each link represents a node and contains the data element along with a reference to the next link. The last link in the chain points to null, indicating the end of the list.

Here's a Java code example to create a linked list:

1class Main {
2  public static void main(String[] args) {
3    // Create nodes
4    Node firstNode = new Node(1);
5    Node secondNode = new Node(2);
6    Node thirdNode = new Node(3);
7
8    // Connect nodes
9    firstNode.next = secondNode;
10    secondNode.next = thirdNode;
11
12    // Traverse the linked list
13    Node currentNode = firstNode;
14    while (currentNode != null) {
15      System.out.println(currentNode.data);
16      currentNode = currentNode.next;
17    }
18  }
19}
20
21class Node {
22  int data;
23  Node next;
24
25  public Node(int data) {
26    this.data = data;
27    this.next = null;
28  }
29}

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class Main {

  public static void main(String[] args) {

    // replace with your Java logic here

    // Link List code example goes here

  }

}