What is meant by circular linked list?

Data Structure - Circular Linked List

Circular Linked List

In this article, you will learn what circular linked list is and its types with implementation.

A circular linked list is a type of linked list in which the first and the last nodes are also connected to each other to form a circle.

There are basically two types of circular linked list:

1. Circular Singly Linked List

Here, the address of the last node consists of the address of the first node.

Circular Linked List Representation

2. Circular Doubly Linked List

Here, in addition to the last node storing the address of the first node, the first node will also store the address of the last node.

Circular Doubly Linked List Representation

Note: We will be using the singly circular linked list to represent the working of circular linked list.

Circular Linked List

Circular Linked List is little more complicated linked data structure. In the circular linked list we can insert elements anywhere in the list whereas in the array we cannot insert element anywhere in the list because it is in the contiguous memory. In the circular linked list the previous element stores the address of the next element and the last element stores the address of the starting element. The elements points to each other in a circular way which forms a circular chain. The circular linked list has a dynamic size which means the memory can be allocated when it is required.

Application of Circular Linked List

The real life application where the circular linked list is used is our Personal Computers, where multiple applications are running. All the running applications are kept in a circular linked list and the OS gives a fixed time slot to all for running. The Operating System keeps on iterating over the linked list until all the applications are completed.
Another example can be Multiplayer games. All the Players are kept in a Circular Linked List and the pointer keeps on moving forward as a player's chance ends.
Circular Linked List can also be used to create Circular Queue. In a Queue we have to keep two pointers, FRONT and REAR in memory all the time, where as in Circular Linked List, only one pointer is required.

Implementing Circular Linked List

Implementing a circular linked list is very easy and almost similar to linear linked list implementation, with the only difference being that, in circular linked list the last Node will have it's next point to the Head of the List. In Linear linked list the last Node simply holds NULL in it's next pointer.

So this will be oue Node class, as we have already studied in the lesson, it will be used to form the List.

class Node { public: int data; //pointer to the next node node* next; node() { data = 0; next = NULL; } node(int x) { data = x; next = NULL; } }

Circular Linked List

Circular Linked List class will be almost same as the Linked List class that we studied in the previous lesson, with a few difference in the implementation of class methods.

class CircularLinkedList { public: node *head; //declaring the functions //function to add Node at front int addAtFront(node *n); //function to check whether Linked list is empty int isEmpty(); //function to add Node at the End of list int addAtEnd(node *n); //function to search a value node* search(int k); //function to delete any Node node* deleteNode(int x); CircularLinkedList() { head = NULL; } }

Insertion at the Beginning

Steps to insert a Node at beginning :

The first Node is the Head for any Linked List.
When a new Linked List is instantiated, it just has the Head, which is Null.
Else, the Head holds the pointer to the fisrt Node of the List.
When we want to add any Node at the front, we must make the head point to it.
And the Next pointer of the newly added Node, must point to the previous Head, whether it be NULL(in case of new List) or the pointer to the first Node of the List.
The previous Head Node is now the second Node of Linked List, because the new Node is added at the front.

int CircularLinkedList :: addAtFront(node *n) { int i = 0; /* If the list is empty */ if(head == NULL) { n->next = head; //making the new Node as Head head = n; i++; } else { n->next = head; //get the Last Node and make its next point to new Node Node* last = getLastNode(); last->next = n; //also make the head point to the new first Node head = n; i++; } //returning the position where Node is added return i; }

Insertion at the End

Steps to insert a Node at the end :

If the Linked List is empty then we simply, add the new Node as the Head of the Linked List.
If the Linked List is not empty then we find the last node, and make it' next to the new Node, and make the next of the Newly added Node point to the Head of the List.

int CircularLinkedList :: addAtEnd(node *n) { //If list is empty if(head == NULL) { //making the new Node as Head head = n; //making the next pointer of the new Node as Null n->next = NULL; } else { //getting the last node node *last = getLastNode(); last->next = n; //making the next pointer of new node point to head n->next = head; } }

Searching for an Element in the List

In searhing we do not have to do much, we just need to traverse like we did while getting the last node, in this case we will also compare the data of the Node. If we get the Node with the same data, we will return it, otherwise we will make our pointer point the next Node, and so on.

node* CircularLinkedList :: search(int x) { node *ptr = head; while(ptr != NULL && ptr->data != x) { //until we reach the end or we find a Node with data x, we keep moving ptr = ptr->next; } return ptr; }

Deleting a Node from the List

Deleting a node can be done in many ways, like we first search the Node with data which we want to delete and then we delete it. In our approach, we will define a method which will take the data to be deleted as argument, will use the search method to locate it and will then remove the Node from the List.

To remove any Node from the list, we need to do the following :

If the Node to be deleted is the first node, then simply set the Next pointer of the Head to point to the next element from the Node to be deleted. And update the next pointer of the Last Node as well.
If the Node is in the middle somewhere, then find the Node before it, and make the Node before it point to the Node next to it.
If the Node is at the end, then remove it and make the new last node point to the head.

node* CircularLinkedList :: deleteNode(int x) { //searching the Node with data x node *n = search(x); node *ptr = head; if(ptr == NULL) { cout << "List is empty"; return NULL; } else if(ptr == n) { ptr->next = n->next; return n; } else { while(ptr->next != n) { ptr = ptr->next; } ptr->next = n->next; return n; } }

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What is a circular linked list?

Circular Singly Linked List

In a circular Singly linked list, the last node of the list contains a pointer to the first node of the list. We can have circular singly linked list as well as circular doubly linked list.

We traverse a circular singly linked list until we reach the same node where we started. The circular singly liked list has no beginning and no ending. There is no null value present in the next part of any of the nodes.

The following image shows a circular singly linked list.

Circular linked list are mostly used in task maintenance in operating systems. There are many examples where circular linked list are being used in computer science including browser surfing where a record of pages visited in the past by the user, is maintained in the form of circular linked lists and can be accessed again on clicking the previous button.

What is a Circular linked list?

A circular linked is very similar to a singly linked list, the only difference is in the singly linked list the last node of the list point to null but in the circular linked list the last node of the list point to the address of the head. This type of list is known as a circular linked list.

We can traverse all nodes starting from the head and stop when the next node is pointing to the head which indicates we have reached the last node.

Below is the figure of how circular linked list looks

Circular linked list

While traversing the circular linked list, we have to break the loop if we find the next of the last node is equal to the head other we can go into an infinite loop.