[Tutor] linked list with cycle structure

[Kent Johnson]

On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 5:59 AM, David Hláčik <david at hlacik.eu> wrote:
> Hello guys,
>
> I have a linked list where *number of elements is unlimited* and
> **last element points on random (can be first, last, in middle ,
> anywhere) element within linked list** - this is important . My goals
> is to create an architecture /scheme for **algoritmus which will count
> total number of elements** of such linked list.

So the list is effectively endless because it has a cycle?

You could walk the list, adding elements (or their ids) to a set,
stopping when you get to an element that is in the set already. Then
the size of the set is the size of the list.

Kent