How would I write a pop_front function for a list?

Question

As an exercise, I'm creating my own container class template called List. It's a single-end linked list based off a template, and the node is a struct that is nested in the list itself, like so:

template<typename T>
class list
{
protected:
    struct node
    {
        T data;
        node* link;
    };
    node* head;
    //Rest of the code after here
};

The container has two functions to build the list: push_front and pop_front. I managed to figure out the push_front function, however I have trouble figuring out how to write a pop_front function. The pop_front function removes the head of the list and sets the next value in the list as the head. I don't know how an actual pop_front function works, so I'm stuck here. What should I do next?

Answer 1

I do not know how you would write the function. As for me I would write it the following way.

void pop_front()
{
   if ( head )
   {
      node *tmp = head;
      head = head->link;
      delete tmp
   }
}