A Common-Sense Guide to Data Structures and Algorithms

Linked Lists

A linked list is a data structure that represents a list of items, just like an array. In fact, in any application in which you’re using an array, you could probably use a linked list instead. Under the hood, however, linked lists are implemented differently and can have different performance in varying situations.

As mentioned in our first chapter, memory inside a computer exists as a giant set of cells in which bits of data are stored. When creating an array, your code finds a contiguous group of empty cells in memory and designates them to store data for your application as shown.

We also explained there that the computer has the ...