How do you reverse a linked list when we only have a single reference to its last node?

How do you reverse a linked list when we only have a single reference to its last node?

Steps to reverse a Singly Linked List

1. Create two more pointers other than head namely prevNode and curNode that will hold the reference of previous node and current node respectively.
2. Now, disconnect the previous node i.e. the first node from others.
3. Move head node to its next node i.e. head = head->next.

Can you reverse a linked list in place?

In a singly linked list, order is determined by a given node’s next property. This property can either reference another node or will point to null if this is the last node in the list. So reversing a linked list, simply means reassigning all the next properties, on every node.

What is the head of a linked list?

The first and last node of a linked list usually are called the head and tail of the list, respectively. Thus, we can traverse the list starting at the head and ending at the tail. The tail node is a special node, where the next pointer is always pointing or linking to a null reference, indicating the end of the list.

Is there a recursive way to reverse a linked list?

We have discussed an iterative and two recursive approaches in previous post on reverse a linked list. In this approach of reversing a linked list by passing a single pointer what we are trying to do is that we are making the previous node of the current node as his next node to reverse the linked list.

How to return a pointer to a previous node in a linked list?

We return the pointer of next node to his previous (current) node and then make the previous node as the next node of returned node and then returning the current node. We first traverse till the last node and making the last node as the head node of reversed linked list and then applying the above procedure in the recursive manner.

Can a reverse a list cause stack overflow?

If your task requires recursion, you can make a extract the first node, reverse the remainder of the list and append the first node. Beware that this is not tail recursion, hence any sufficiently long list may cause a stack overflow.

How to update the last node in a linked list?

Once all entries are done, Update the Head pointer to the last location (i.e the last value). Start popping the nodes (value and address) and store them in the same order until the stack is empty. Update the next pointer of last Node in the stack by NULL.