What data structure would this pseudo-code represent or act upon?

Question

I have some pseudo-code that I am trying to label. Here it is:

a= head
while a.value < b.value do a = a.next
b.next = a.next
a.next = b

To me this appears to be code used on a singly, or doubly linked list, but I have at least confirmed that it is NOT as doubly linked list. Does anyone know what data structure this would be from or act upon? Thank you.

Answer 1

It's for a singly-linked list. It looks like a routine to insert a node b into a list in sorted order. The chain of next links and lack of prev links are highly indicative of a singly-linked list. If this routine does what I think it does, though, it appears bugged; it doesn't seem to handle the case where b's value is greater than all values in the list.