This C Program uses recursive function & counts the number of nodes in a linked list. A linked list is an ordered set of data elements, each containing a link to its successor.


Here is the source code of the C program to count the number of nodes in a linked list. The C Program is successfully compiled and run on a Linux system. The program output is also shown below.

/*
* Recursive C program to find length of a linked list
*/
#include
#include

struct node
{
int a;
struct node *next;
};

void generate(struct node **);
int length(struct node*);
void delete(struct node **);

int main()
{
struct node *head = NULL;
int count;

generate(&head);
count = length(head);
printf("The number of nodes are: %d\n", count);
delete(&head);
return 0;
}

void generate(struct node **head)
{
/* for unknown number of nodes use num = rand() % 20; */
int num = 10, i;
struct node *temp;

for (i = 0; i < num; i++)
{
temp = (struct node *)malloc(sizeof(struct node));
temp->a = i;
if (*head == NULL)
{
*head = temp;
(*head)->next = NULL;
}
else
{
temp->next = *head;
*head = temp;
}
}
}

int length(struct node *head)
{
if (head->next == NULL)
{
return 1;
}
return (1 + length(head->next));
}

void delete(struct node **head)
{
struct node *temp;
while (*head != NULL)
{
temp = *head;
*head = (*head)->next;
free(temp);
}
}


$ cc pgm14.c
$ a.out
The number of nodes are: 10