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Discussion on: Doubly Linked Lists

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3z1ooo profile image
Ezio

Why getLast?
Wouldn't that be: "this.tail". ?

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joelbonetr profile image
JoelBonetR 🥇 • Edited

The only difference is the name you want to use unless you index it on a circular linked list, where you'll expect to get the last added (last index) and head/tail doesn't exist.
The same way I would name getFirst to my method to get the head one, it's more plain language. Of course, it's just my opinion or likening, not something to blind follow (unless again, you use a circular linked list, doubly or not, where there's no such thing like head or tail).

As it's a custom data structure and the methods/functions are custom as well, you can name it potato if you want.

*It is highly not recommended to name a method/function "potato", please use semantically correct names.

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3z1ooo profile image
Ezio

If we had stack we can use getLast.
What you did .i.e: "getLast" , was useless; to redo the same thing but only more complex.
This way we can add getSecond, getThird, get fourth, getFifth ...
Guess what? We dont need that, and that's why it's a double linked list.

*This comment unlike the previous one has nothing todo with potato

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joelbonetr profile image
JoelBonetR 🥇 • Edited

getLast / getTail has the same utility than getFirst / getHead, you can implement it or not, just depends on the need of getting some specific position, no matter the index being first, last, in the middle or in any other arbitrary position.
If for any reason you need to check the second element multiple times then sure, go and implement a getSecond. Or simply implement a search method and ask for the second one, which will be the same.

Is a non sense to argue about that since we are not talking about a specific use case. On the other hand, being a double linked list has nothing to do with the utility of those hypothetical methods. Again, they only have no sense when talking about circular lists, which is not the case.

Just to clarify, a circular doubly linked list is the same than a doubly linked list but the head and the tail are considered as prev/next between them (so you'll always have a "next" or a "prev" item as there's no end, thus there are no start point and you need to consider the number of items to avoid infinite looping.
You can learn more about here: humanwhocodes.com/blog/2019/03/com....

Best regards