Circular Linked List

Lists where tail connects to head for circular iteration.

5 min readMastering Data Structures & Algorithms for Software Engineering InterviewsCode

Structure

In a circular linked list, the tail's Next points back to head (singly) or head's Prev points to tail (doubly). No nil termination — traversal loops infinitely unless stopped.

Gocircular-linked-list.go

37 linesLn 1, Col 1Go

Tail pointer gives O(1) access to both ends. Head is tail.Next. Traversal stops when we return to head.

Operations

Godelete-and-rotate.go

25 linesLn 1, Col 1Go

Delete needs predecessor (or traverse to find it). Rotate just moves tail pointer — useful for round-robin.

Applications

Round-robin scheduling: CPU time slices, load balancing.
Circular buffer/ring buffer: Fixed-size buffer with overwrite.
Josephus problem: Elimination game.
Multiplayer games: Turn management.
Playlist repeat mode: Continuous looping.

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