🔗 Singly Linked List (C++)

This project implements a Singly Linked List in C++ as part of my Learning Journey.
It’s written with detailed comments and educational explanations — for learners to follow easily, and for recruiters to see my ability to write clean, well-documented, and modular C++ code.

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🧠 What Is a Linked List?

A linked list is a linear data structure where each element, called a node, contains:

• data — the stored value
• next — a pointer to the next node

🧩 Visualization

	[HEAD] → [10 | *] → [20 | *] → [30 | NULL]

Each arrow (→) represents a pointer connecting one node to the next.

A list with two elements can be visualized like this:

	 Node*      Node         Node
	+------+   +-----+      +-----+
	| head |-->|value|  +-->|value|
	+------+   +-----+  |   +-----+
	           |next |--+   |next |-->nullptr
	           +-----+      +-----+

The Pointer "head" here points to the fisrts element of linked list. because we don't want to loose the head our chain in the memory!

💡 Why Linked Lists Are Important

Concept	Description
Dynamic Memory	Linked lists grow and shrink at runtime — no fixed size like arrays.
Efficient Insertion/Deletion	Inserting or deleting nodes doesn’t require shifting elements.
Foundation for Other Structures	Stacks, Queues, Graphs, and Hash Tables often use linked lists internally.

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Stacks, Queues, Graphs, etc... like vectors are containers to save data in in a progamming languages like C++.

⚙️ Features Implemented

This SinglyLinkedList class supports the following operations:

Operation	Description	Time Complexity
push_front(value)	Insert a node at the beginning	O(1)
push_back(value)	Insert a node at the end	O(n)
at(index)	Return the value of the element located in a a specific position
insert_at(index, value)	Insert a node at a specific position	O(n)
pop_front()	Delete the first node	O(1)
pop_back()	Delete the last node	O(n)
remove_at(index)	Delete a node by index	O(n)
size()	Return the number of nodes	O(n)

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🧱 File Overview

File	Description
singly_linked_list.hpp	Header file with class definition
singly_linked_list.cpp	Implementation with detailed comments
main.cpp	Demonstration program

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🧰 How to Compile and Run

You can build the demo with any C++ compiler:

g++ main.cpp singly_linked_list.cpp -o linked_list
./linked_list

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📘 Learning Notes

• This implementation focuses on:

• Understanding pointer logic

• Practicing memory management (new / delete)

• Writing clear, documented code

• Following object-oriented design principles

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🔮 Future Improvements

• Add these methods:

  • search(value)
  • print()
  • clear()
  • reverse()

• Implement a DoublyLinkedList class

• Visualize the list structure with ASCII diagrams

• Create unit tests for each method

• Convert Node class to Template class

• Error handling and using informational errors

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👨‍💻 Author

Habib Mote Student at 42 Berlin

• 📫 LinkedIn
• 💻 GitHub