Design Linked List

Problem Definition

Design your implementation of the linked list. You can choose to use a singly or doubly linked list.
A node in a singly linked list should have two attributes: val and next. val is the value of the current node, and next is a pointer/reference to the next node.
If you want to use the doubly linked list, you will need one more attribute prev to indicate the previous node in the linked list. Assume all nodes in the linked list are 0-indexed.

Implement the MyLinkedList class:

MyLinkedList() Initializes the MyLinkedList object.
int get(int index) Get the value of the index^th node in the linked list. If the index is invalid, return -1.
void addAtHead(int val) Add a node of value val before the first element of the linked list. After the insertion, the new node will be the first node of the linked list.
void addAtTail(int val) Append a node of value val as the last element of the linked list.
void addAtIndex(int index, int val) Add a node of value val before the index^th node in the linked list. If index equals the length of the linked list, the node will be appended to the end of the linked list. If index is greater than the length, the node will not be inserted.
void deleteAtIndex(int index) Delete the index^th node in the linked list, if the index is valid.

Example

Input:

["MyLinkedList", "addAtHead", "addAtTail", "addAtIndex", "get", "deleteAtIndex", "get"]
[[], [1], [3], [1, 2], [1], [1], [1]]

Output:

[null, null, null, null, 2, null, 3]

Explanation:

MyLinkedList myLinkedList = new MyLinkedList();
myLinkedList.addAtHead(1);
myLinkedList.addAtTail(3);
myLinkedList.addAtIndex(1, 2);    // linked list becomes 1->2->3
myLinkedList.get(1);              // return 2
myLinkedList.deleteAtIndex(1);    // now the linked list is 1->3
myLinkedList.get(1);              // return 3

Constraints:

0 <= index, val <= 1000
Please do not use the built-in LinkedList library.
At most 2000 calls will be made to get, addAtHead, addAtTail, addAtIndex and deleteAtIndex.

Thought Process

If you are not very familiar with the basics of linked lists, you can read this article:

If you're not clear about the dummy head node of a linked list, you can read this article:

Delete linked list node:

Add linked list node:

This problem designs five interfaces for a linked list:

Get the value of the node at index in the linked list
Insert a node at the front of the linked list
Insert a node at the end of the linked list
Insert a node before the node at index in the linked list
Delete the node at index in the linked list

These five interfaces cover common operations on a linked list and make it an excellent exercise for practicing linked list operations.

There are two ways to perform operations on a linked list:

Directly use and operate on the original linked list.
Set up a dummy head node for performing operations.

Solution 1 - Dummy Head Node

The following approach uses setting up a dummy head node (this makes it more convenient, as you will see from looking at the code).

class ListNode:
    def __init__(self, val=0, next=None):
        self.val = val
        self.next = next
        
class MyLinkedList:
    def __init__(self):
        self.dummy_head = ListNode()
        self.size = 0

    def get(self, index: int) -> int:
        if index < 0 or index >= self.size:
            return -1
        
        current = self.dummy_head.next
        for i in range(index):
            current = current.next
            
        return current.val

    def addAtHead(self, val: int) -> None:
        self.dummy_head.next = ListNode(val, self.dummy_head.next)
        self.size += 1

    def addAtTail(self, val: int) -> None:
        current = self.dummy_head
        while current.next:
            current = current.next
        current.next = ListNode(val)
        self.size += 1

    def addAtIndex(self, index: int, val: int) -> None:
        if index < 0 or index > self.size:
            return
        
        current = self.dummy_head
        for i in range(index):
            current = current.next
        current.next = ListNode(val, current.next)
        self.size += 1

    def deleteAtIndex(self, index: int) -> None:
        if index < 0 or index >= self.size:
            return
        
        current = self.dummy_head
        for i in range(index):
            current = current.next
        current.next = current.next.next
        self.size -= 1

Time complexity: Operations involving index are O(index), others are O(1)

Space complexity: O(n)

Solution 2 - Double Linked List

This code implements a doubly linked list through the MyLinkedList class, where each ListNode has pointers to both the previous node and the next node.

class ListNode:
    def __init__(self, val=0, prev=None, next=None):
        self.val = val
        self.prev = prev
        self.next = next

class MyLinkedList:
    def __init__(self):
        self.head = None
        self.tail = None
        self.size = 0

    def get(self, index: int) -> int:
        if index < 0 or index >= self.size:
            return -1
        
        if index < self.size // 2:
            current = self.head
            for i in range(index):
                current = current.next
        else:
            current = self.tail
            for i in range(self.size - index - 1):
                current = current.prev
                
        return current.val

    def addAtHead(self, val: int) -> None:
        new_node = ListNode(val, None, self.head)
        if self.head:
            self.head.prev = new_node
        else:
            self.tail = new_node
        self.head = new_node
        self.size += 1

    def addAtTail(self, val: int) -> None:
        new_node = ListNode(val, self.tail, None)
        if self.tail:
            self.tail.next = new_node
        else:
            self.head = new_node
        self.tail = new_node
        self.size += 1

    def addAtIndex(self, index: int, val: int) -> None:
        if index < 0 or index > self.size:
            return
        
        if index == 0:
            self.addAtHead(val)
        elif index == self.size:
            self.addAtTail(val)
        else:
            if index < self.size // 2:
                current = self.head
                for i in range(index - 1):
                    current = current.next
            else:
                current = self.tail
                for i in range(self.size - index):
                    current = current.prev
            new_node = ListNode(val, current, current.next)
            current.next.prev = new_node
            current.next = new_node
            self.size += 1

    def deleteAtIndex(self, index: int) -> None:
        if index < 0 or index >= self.size:
            return
        
        if index == 0:
            self.head = self.head.next
            if self.head:
                self.head.prev = None
            else:
                self.tail = None
        elif index == self.size - 1:
            self.tail = self.tail.prev
            if self.tail:
                self.tail.next = None
            else:
                self.head = None
        else:
            if index < self.size // 2:
                current = self.head
                for i in range(index):
                    current = current.next
            else:
                current = self.tail
                for i in range(self.size - index - 1):
                    current = current.prev
            current.prev.next = current.next
            current.next.prev = current.prev
        self.size -= 1

This is a doubly linked list implementation, which allows:

Efficient bidirectional traversal.
Faster insertions and deletions at both ends compared to singly linked lists.

Optimizations:

The get and addAtIndex methods optimize traversal by starting from either the head or tail depending on the index, reducing the traversal time on average.