Types of Linked List in Data Structures


From implementing stacks to storing abstract types of data, the linked lists carry the functions with the utmost efficiency.

 But, did you know that the linked lists can be categorized in terms of their structures also?  

Well, a linked list is typically the form of data structure that stores the elements in a series that do not have any correlation with their prior sequence. 

Read along till the end of this blog to learn more about linked lists while enhancing your knowledge base of the concepts of the first and last occurrences of x and flattening a linked list.

 

Types of linked lists in Data Structures

The types of linked lists that we have discussed below are based on the structure of the lists. But, that does not imply the fact that you cannot change or modify the structure of the linked lists. 

The beginner-level programmers should be aware of the fact that you can implement your own type of linked list as per the solution of the problem. 

With that said, there are typically four types of linked lists that are crucial for the study of data structure:

  • Singly-linked lists: This sort of linked list only follows a certain direction. This means that you can only navigate this list in one direction, from the head node to the tail node of the list. The nodes of the list consist of two basic pieces of information, we have the pointer containing the address of the next node and the data stored in the node.

This structure of the linked list is used most often when it comes to implementing data for your solution. Typically if you are starting out with studying a linked list, more often than not it will be a singly-linked list. 

  • Doubly linked list: As the name suggests this list can be navigated in both directions. Quite different from the singly linked list the doubly linked list consists of an extra pointer which is referred to as the “previous pointer”. This is the pointer that points towards the previous node. 

Every single node present in a doubly linked list consists of three different parts, i.e the data part and the two address parts of the node. Since it is a doubly linked list we can observe two different pointers, one of them will be pointing towards the previous node while the other will point towards the next one. 

  • Circular linked list: When the last node of a linked list is pointing towards its first node it is known as a circular linked list. This explains the reason why this list can only be navigated in a certain direction. Also, while you are navigating this list you have to keep in mind that the list will reach the head node after a few strings. 

You can state that each node in a circular linked list points to its next node. Due to this, we observe that the structure represents a circle because the last node stores the address for the very first node of the list.

  • Circular doubly linked list: This list is quite a tricky one because it shares the features of both a doubly linked list and a circular linked list. 

Hence, this linked list also shares an extra pointer, and similar to the circular linked list the first and last nodes of this are joined too. You can navigate this list in two different directions much like the doubly linked list because of the presence of the pointer.


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