Copy a linked list

Create a new node for every node in the old list, copy the corresponding data and make the next pointer of the nodes in the new list point to their successor in the new list, forgetting the other pointer for time being. At the time of creating a new node remember the mapping of node address something like:

Old_list   New_list------------------- 0x123      0x345     [ addresses of the first node]0xabc      0xdef     [ addresses of the second node]...

In the second pass pass for every node in the new list consider its other pointer and find its corresponding node in the new list from the map and use it as the other pointer of this node (node in the new list).

Came across this. Hope it helps!

Citing one solution from this link, below.

1) Create the copy of 1 and insert it between 1 & 2, create the copy of 2 and insert it between 2 & 3.. Continue in this fashion, add the copy of N to Nth node

2) Now copy the arbitrary link in this fashion

 if original->arbitrary is not NULL   original->next->arbitrary = original->arbitrary->next;  /*TRAVERSE TWO NODES*/ else   original->next->arbitrary=NULL;

This works because original->next is nothing but copy of original and Original->arbitrary->next is nothing but copy of arbitrary.

3) Now restore the original and copy linked lists in this fashion in a single loop.

 original->next = original->next->next; copy->next = copy->next->next;

4) Make sure that last element of original->next is NULL.

Sample code, Time Complexity O(N), Space Complexity O(1)

pNode copy_list(pNode head) {  // pre-condition: node->other either points into the list or NULL  if (!head) return NULL;  pNode node = head, copied = NULL, cnode = NULL;  for ( ; node; node = node->next->next) {    // make copy    cnode = newnode(node->next, node->data);    cnode->other = node->other;    if (node == head)      copied = cnode;    // insert the copy between originals        node->next = cnode;        // node -> cnode -> (orig)node->next  }  for (node = head; node && node->next;        node = node->next->next /* only original nodes */)     if (node->other)      node->next->other = node->other->next;    else      node->next->other = NULL;      // restore lists  node = head; cnode = copied;  for ( ; cnode && cnode->next; node = node->next, cnode = cnode->next) {     node->next = node->next->next;    cnode->next = cnode->next->next;  }  node->next = NULL;  return copied;}

Complete program is at http://gist.github.com/349630

I like the solution of Codaddict, but this would be my answer:

1. iterate over the linked list.
   a. store the data in an array (position i for the i'th node of course)
   b. replace data with i to create an id (this way you'll definitely know which node you are talking about)

2. create the 2nd linked list the size of the first (ignore the other pointer for now)*. maybe use a temporary array to find each node quickly

3. iterate over the first linked list.a. find out which id other points to (which is in that nodes data)b. recreate this link in the 2nd linked list (the temporary array could really help here)

4. iterate over both linked list simultaneously and replace the ids in data with the stored data

Of course you could collapse some processing and iterating here. But this would roughly be what I would do/think of.