Thread: Help with Singly Linked List !!

Hey I was trying to write a function in C to delete a node(only from the middle) from a Singly Linked List. I wrote one but not sure if the code will work fine under all test conditions. I have tested it and shows no error so far, but can you help me figure out any problems/issues that might arise if i used it that i have missed?

Code:

   void deleteAt(struct node *root, int number){
    while(root->link != NULL)
    {
        if(root->link->item == number) //checks if the next node is the element to be deleted
        {
            root->link = root->link->link; //points the link of the element to be deleted to the element before the element to be deleted
        }
        else
            root = root->link;
    }


}

Or is there a better way to do this?

The way the function is currently defined, it will delete each element in the list that is equal to 'number' (and also, not the first element of the list.) But the name seems to imply that it will delete the element that occurs at the position 'number', so there seems to be some confusion there. For the first behaviour I think you could just call the function "delete".

For either intention, the problem I see is that it doesn't handle the first element of the list, so perhaps you might consider one of the following function types?

Code:

void delete(struct node **listp, int value);
struct node *delete(struct node *list, int value);

Either of these would allow you to delete the first element. I personally tend to lean more toward the first for in-place deletions and the second for producing a copy of the list with each element equal to 'value' removed.

The naming is ambiguous indeed. I wanted to write a separate function like POP(); to delete the first element in the linked list. Thanks