CODEWITHSUNDEEP
clist
kachilous
kachilous

Reputation: 2529

Converting a linear linked list to a circular linked list

I have a few questions for the following piece of code. Please bear with me. The code might be easy to understand, but I am still in the process of learning, so this is still abstract to me. 

struct listNode {
int data;
struct listNode *next };

//Is J a pointer, pointing to the head of the linked list?
struct listNode * convert ( struct listNode * J) {

if (J == NULL) 
    return NULL; 

//Is this creating a new temporary pointer that will traverse the linked list?
//Is it being set to J so that it can start at the first node and go to the last?
struct listNode * temp = J; 

while ( temp -> next != NULL) 
    temp = temp->next; //Is this where the temp pointer actually goes through the list?

//Temp->next will eventually become the last node of the list and that will be set to J
//which is the head pointer?
  temp->next = J; 

return temp;
}

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1554

Answers (1)

sdadffdfd
sdadffdfd

Reputation: 693

Everything you wrote as comments is true, and at the end you can consider any point as head since it's a circular list now

the only difference between a linear linked list and a circular one is that the last node points to NULL in the first case, or it points to the first node, for the second.

The algorithm:

1) you take a temp pointer to find the last node (initialise it with J, the head, and parse the list until you hit NULL)

2) you point temp, which is the last node now, to the first node, which is J

Upvotes: 3

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