Hey, everyone
And this video,
I'm gonna give you a quick introduction to linked list
And in this video, I'm only gonna cover
the very basic of linked lists. But I'll cover more
advanced topics in a later video. Now a linked lists is
basically a data structure for storing a collection of item.
For example, these numbers
6, 3, 4, 2 and 1
and it does in a different way from the way an array does it
So as we saw in my previous video
an array can be visualized as a long box
with many partitions of the same size
and a linked list can be visualzed as
many boxes that are connected to each other
and the difference between an array and a linked list
will be more clear in a later video
But let's first focus on how a linked list
can be implemented in this video. Now each of
these boxes in a linked list can be represent as an object
And let's say the class for that objects is called
the Box
Actually we will rename it later. We're gonna change the name later.
but let's for now call it Box
And it's gonna have two attributes or 2 fields in this class.
and first one of those attributes is gonna be called 'data'
it's gonna be the data or the item
each box contains
so if you have... let's say the first box in a variable
called head
if you write head dot data
that's gonna give us this value 6 right there
that's the data - head the first box contains
and the type of data could actually be anything
it could be an integer. it could be a string
a character or anything else for there matter
but here I just assume that it's an integer. just for simplicity
And that's why I wrote int data here.
and the second attribute here or the second field
is gonna be called next.
That's gonna refers to the next box that's connected to
the particular box
if you write head dot next
that's gonna refer to the next box