An inductive data type is an aggregate data type that refers to itself. In other words, the type being defined is one of the constituent types of the type being defined. A node in a singly linked list is a classical example of an inductive data type. The node contains some value and a pointer to the next node, which is also of the same node type:
Technically, this example type is not an inductive data type because the type being defined (struct node_tag) is not a member of itself. Rather, this type contains a pointer to a value of its type (struct node_tag*). This discrepancy highlights a key difference ...
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