C Linked Structure

Linked structure is the fundamental data structures in C.

Knowledge of linked structures is must for C programmers. This article explains the fundamentals of C linked list with an example C program.

Linked structure is a dynamic data structure whose length can be increased or decreased at run time.

How Linked lists are different from arrays? Consider the following points :

• An array is a static data structure. This means the length of array cannot be altered at run time. While, a linked list is a dynamic data structure.
• In an array, all the elements are kept at consecutive memory locations while in a linked list the elements (or nodes) may be kept at any location but still connected to each other.

When to prefer linked lists over arrays? Linked lists are preferred mostly when you don’t know the volume of data to be stored. For example, In an employee management system, one cannot use arrays as they are of fixed length while any number of new employees can join. In scenarios like these, linked lists (or other dynamic data structures) are used as their capacity can be increased (or decreased) at run time (as an when required).