Editing Linked list (section)

===Singly linked linear lists vs. other lists===
While doubly linked and circular lists have advantages over singly linked linear lists, linear lists offer some advantages that make them preferable in some situations.

A singly linked linear list is a [[recursion|recursive]] data structure, because it contains a pointer to a ''smaller'' object of the same type. For that reason, many operations on singly linked linear lists (such as [[Merge algorithm|merging]] two lists, or enumerating the elements in reverse order) often have very simple recursive algorithms, much simpler than any solution using [[iteration|iterative command]]s. While those recursive solutions can be adapted for doubly linked and circularly linked lists, the procedures generally need extra arguments and more complicated base cases.

Linear singly linked lists also allow [[tail-sharing]], the use of a common final portion of sub-list as the terminal portion of two different lists. In particular, if a new node is added at the beginning of a list, the former list remains available as the tail of the new one—a simple example of a [[persistent data structure]]. Again, this is not true with the other variants: a node may never belong to two different circular or doubly linked lists.

In particular, end-sentinel nodes can be shared among singly linked non-circular lists. The same end-sentinel node may be used for ''every'' such list. In [[Lisp programming language|Lisp]], for example, every proper list ends with a link to a special node, denoted by <code>nil</code> or <code>()</code>.

The advantages of the fancy variants are often limited to the complexity of the algorithms, not in their efficiency. A circular list, in particular, can usually be emulated by a linear list together with two variables that point to the first and last nodes, at no extra cost.