One Pager Cheat Sheet

• Understanding the fundamentals of data structures and when to appropriately use a linked list is essential in software development.
• Linked lists are linear data structures, meaning elements are traversed and constructed in a sequence and order, similar to a game of hopscotch.
• A linked list is a linear data structure composed of nodes that use pointers to reference the next element in sequence and the starting and ending point of the list is marked by the head and tail, respectively.
• A node in a linked list contains two essential parts: data members storing information and a link providing a pointer to the next node.
• A singly linked list consists of nodes that store data and a reference pointing to the next node.
• A doubly linked list has nodes with a data value, a reference to the previous node, and a reference to the next node.
• A circular linked list allows efficient traversal of a full list beginning at any node.
• A circular linked list consists of a set of nodes which link to one another in an unbroken circular sequence, with the tail node pointing back to the head node.
• Linked lists are beneficial for shifting elements around, while arrays allow for faster item lookup in constant time.
• A linked list is dynamically size-able due to its pointers that reference the next memory address, making it easier to add and remove nodes compared to an array, which must be shifted around.
• Reversing a linked list involves reassigning the next property of each node and iterating through the list with three pointers (current, next, and prev) to achieve the desired reversal.
• The print(Node head) function loops through the linked list starting from the head node and prints out the values of each node to the console.
• The Node class needs to be given the pointer to the next Node in order to link them together in a linked list.
• We use a ptr pointer to handle the special case when it is null, and then use a tail pointer to iterate over the original linked list and create a copy.
• Deciding whether or not to use a linked list requires consideration of both the advantages and drawbacks, and one can further their understanding by implementing one.