singly linked list insertion

Please help me understand this code. Thanks.

It is trying to do insert in a sorted linked list.

void SLList: sortedInsert(int element)
{
//Find the place to insert

IntegerNode *p, *q;

for (p = myHead, q =0; //why do we need q? Don't we already
//have a null pointer in the last node?
(p != 0) && (element <= p->data( ); ) //can we omit the update
//instruction?

{q= p; //What does it mean? I don't know what
//would happen in q=p
p = p->next();
}
...}
Thank you for being help.

p points to the current node.
q points to the parent node.

can you omit the increment?

yes you can.... this is a legal for statement too.... for(;;) {...}

besides this.... p = p->next(); is the increment. this assigns p to point at the next node.

Thank you.

I still don't underestand the role of q here. I think it is used to have a null pointer in the last node. Is this correct?

Now supppose we don't know how many nodes in this list, will q always equals to 0? What happens when q = p?


Thanks a lot!

in this snippet q isnt used but it could be very useful as it points to the parent node of the current node.

Code:

---

void SLList: sortedInsert(int element)
{
IntegerNode *Current,*Parent;
for (Current = myHead, // make current point to head of list
Parent=NULL; // head of list has no parent.
(Current != NULL) // make sure that there is something pointed to
 && (element <= Current->data( ); ) // comparison
{
Parent=Current; // now both pointers point to same node... current
Current = Current->next(); // move onto next node in list.
}
}

---

now you can find where to insert all you need implement is how to insert. This is where knowing the address of the parent of the current node is necessary.

Thank you. Your code makes things clear.