C Linked List Data Structure Explained with an Example C Program by Himanshu Arora.
From the post:
Linked list is one of the fundamental data structures in C.
Knowledge of linked lists is must for C programmers. This article explains the fundamentals of C linked list with an example C program.
Linked list is a dynamic data structure whose length can be increased or decreased at run time.
How Linked lists are different from arrays? Consider the following points :
- An array is a static data structure. This means the length of array cannot be altered at run time. While, a linked list is a dynamic data structure.
- In an array, all the elements are kept at consecutive memory locations while in a linked list the elements (or nodes) may be kept at any location but still connected to each other.
When to prefer linked lists over arrays? Linked lists are preferred mostly when you don’t know the volume of data to be stored. For example, In an employee management system, one cannot use arrays as they are of fixed length while any number of new employees can join. In scenarios like these, linked lists (or other dynamic data structures) are used as their capacity can be increased (or decreased) at run time (as an when required).
My Neo4J Internals (update) post pointed you to resources on Neo4j’s use of linked lists.
You may find this explanation of linked list data structures in C helpful.
Be aware that Knuth (TACP, vol. 1, page 233, 3rd ed.) suggests “nodes” may also be referenced as records, entities, beads, items or elements. (“Item,” and “element” being variants found in TACP). I am sure there are others.
Question: Assume you have discovered an example of a variant name for “node.” (One of these or another one.) How would you use that discovery in formulating a search?