Question

My list item:

typdef struct sNode
{
   struct sNode* next;
   myData data;
} tNode;

I wish to implement the following API:

bool removeNode(tNode* node)
{
... // need to fix list and free node
}

The problem is that I do not have the previous element to modify.
Is there some kind of magic to solve it?

Answer 1

No. You would have to traverse from the beginning of the list to find the previous node, which is pretty inefficient. This is the problem with singly-linked lists. If you need this to be fast, use a doubly-linked list (each node has a next and a previous pointer).