A pointer is called a linked list if:
- it is an empty pointer (it is then called a terminator or an empty list); or
- it points to a structure (called a node or the head) that contains a value and a linked list (called the tail).
The length of a list is defined as the total number of nodes it contains. In particular, an empty list has length 0.
For example, consider the following linked list:
A -> B -> C -> D ->
This list contains four nodes: A, B, C and D. Node D is the last node and its tail is the terminator. The length of this list is 4.
Assume that the following declarations are given:
// IntList obj is an Object with attributes // obj.value - type: int // obj.next - type: IntList
Write a function:
function solution(L);
that, given a non-empty linked list L consisting of N nodes, returns its length.
For example, given list L shown in the example above, the function should return 4.
Assume that:
- N is an integer within the range [1..5,000];
- list L does not have a cycle (each non-empty pointer points to a different structure).
In your solution, focus on correctness. The performance of your solution will not be the focus of the assessment.