Delete Node in a Linked List

Problem

There is a singly-linked list head and we want to delete a node node in it.

You are given the node to be deleted node. You will not be given access to the first node of head.

All the values of the linked list are unique, and it is guaranteed that the given node node is not the last node in the linked list.

Delete the given node. Note that by deleting the node, we do not mean removing it from memory. We mean:

The value of the given node should not exist in the linked list. The number of nodes in the linked list should decrease by one. All the values before node should be in the same order. All the values after node should be in the same order.

Custom testing:

For the input, you should provide the entire linked list head and the node to be given node. node should not be the last node of the list and should be an actual node in the list. We will build the linked list and pass the node to your function. The output will be the entire list after calling your function.

Example 1:

Input: head = [4,5,1,9], node = 5
Output: [4,1,9]
Explanation: You are given the second node with value 5, the linked list should become 4 -> 1 -> 9 after calling your function.

Example 2:

Input: head = [4,5,1,9], node = 1
Output: [4,5,9]
Explanation: You are given the third node with value 1, the linked list should become 4 -> 5 -> 9 after calling your function.

Constraints:

  • The number of the nodes in the given list is in the range [2, 1000].
  • -1000 <= Node.val <= 1000
  • The value of each node in the list is unique.
  • The node to be deleted is in the list and is not a tail node.

Solution

So much prose for a braindead two-line solution.

class Solution {
    public void deleteNode(ListNode node) {
        node.val = node.next.val;
        node.next = node.next.next;
    }
}

Recent posts from blogs that I like

Doing nothing at work

Many engineers should be doing less work. I don’t necessarily mean producing less code or fewer changes, but literally working fewer hours in the day. When they do work, they should be working at a slower pace. I like to aim to be running at 80% utilization by default: unless I have a high-pressure ...

via Sean Goedecke

Elihu Vedder’s symbolism and stories: 1885-1913

More myth and Symbolism, with the Pleiades, Fates, and Fortuna, followed by large murals and a mosaic in the Library of Congress.

via The Eclectic Light Company

Thoughts on starting new projects with LLM agents

A few months ago I wrote about using LLM agents to help restructuring one of my Python projects. It's worth beginning by saying that the rewrite has been successful by all reasonable measures; I've been able to continue maintaining that project since then without an issue. In this post, I want to di...

via Eli Bendersky