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LinkedList Questions: Delete a given node in constant time
In this series of posts, I will discuss coding questions on the LinkedList
Data structure.
The posts in this series will be organized in the following way,
- Question Link ❓
- Possible Explanation 📝
- Documented C++ Code 🧹
- Time and Space Complexity Analysis ⌛🌌
Write a function to delete a node in a singly-linked list. You will not be given access to the head
of the list, instead you will be given access to the node to be deleted directly.
It is guaranteed that the node to be deleted is not a tail node in the list.
💡 Give yourself atleast 5 mins to figure out the solution :)
It is a warm-up question, there's not much to explain,
- Copy the data of the next node into the given node.
- Make the given node point to the next's neighbor.
- Free up the old neighbor of the given node.
//Definition for singly-linked list.
struct ListNode
{
int val;
ListNode *next;
ListNode() : val(0), next(nullptr) {}
ListNode(int x) : val(x), next(nullptr) {}
ListNode(int x, ListNode *next) : val(x), next(next) {}
};
#include <bits/stdc++.h>
#include "../linkedlist.h"
using namespace std;
/*
-Time:O(1)
-Space:O(1)
*/
class Solution
{
public:
//! given node isn't the "tail" node
void deleteNode(ListNode *node)
{
ListNode *temp = node->next;
//I can do this only because node isn't the tail node
//and "node->next" will not null therefore
node->val = node->next->val;
node->next = node->next->next;
delete temp;
}
};
No iteration or recursion is done.
No extra space is used.
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