How linked lists and queues work under the hood
Following my previous article on arrays, I want to discuss the linked list data structure and some of its operations.
As data scientists, even though we are not necessarily expected to know data structures and algorithms inside-out, it’s still a handy skill set for any tech professional.
That’s why I am creating a series of articles discussing the central data structures and how they work under the hood.
Linked lists are a type of data structure in which each element, called a node, is stored/works in a sequence. However, they are not stored in memory contiguously like arrays.
Each node has two things:
- Data — The value held by that node
- Reference — Points and contains the reference to the next node in the sequence.