OpenEuphoria

Re: Linked Lists

• Posted by jzeitlin at cyburban.com Aug 13, 2001
• 647 views

On Mon, 13 Aug 2001 08:17:04 -0700, Derek Parnell <ddparnell at bigpond.com>
wrote:

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Chris Bensler" <bensler at telus.net>
>To: "EUforum" <EUforum at topica.com>
>Sent: Monday, August 13, 2001 10:24 PM
>Subject: Linked Lists

>>     can someone tell what a linked list is?

>A linked list is a list in which each element is "linked" to the next
>logical element. The logical sequence of the list is not necessarily the
>same as the physical sequence. It usually is in some sorted order.

[Extensive examples deleted]

The key thing about linked lists in other languages is that they are
dynamic structures, allocated and expanded as needed rather than its
resources being statically declared at compile/load time.  In Euphoria,
given that sequences already have this characteristic, I don't see a real
need for linked lists - any operation you can do on a linked list, I
believe I can do on a sequence, and usually it'll be clearer what I'm doing
with the sequence, and will require less code.  The advantage to a
double-linked list in other languages is that it can be traversed in either
direction; again, this is something I can do with sequences in Euphoria.

I think that some people here - not all, by any means - fail to realize
just how useful the sequence data type is - most of the structures that one
learns about in first- or second-semester Computer Science classes (stacks,
queues, linked lists, trees, etc.) can be implemented fairly easily using
sequences - or don't need to be implemented in Euphoria, because a sequence
is more efficient.  More, some complex data structures that appear in only
a few specialized languages (e.g., the association list of LISP) can also
be implemented fairly easily in Euphoria using sequences as a base.  (Watch
this space; I am going to look at the data structure includes I wrote some
time ago, and re-release them, cleaned up if necessary.  The current
versions of them are in the archive as zeitlin.zip, a bad choice of name.)

--
Jeff Zeitlin
jzeitlin at cyburban.com
(ILink: news without the abuse. Ask via email.)