- To traverse a list means to start at one end and visit all the nodes. In the case of method
printList, the task is to print the value field from each node.
public class LList<E>
{
...
public void printList()
{
ListNode<E> temp = first; // start at the first node
while ( temp != null )
{
System.out.print( temp.getValue() + " "
);
temp = temp.getNext(); // go to next node
}
}
...
}
-
We need a variable to traverse through the list so temp is created. Because temp is an alias to first, we can use it to traverse the list without altering the reference to the start of the list. The ListNode variable, temp, will contain null when we are done.
-
Until temp equals null, the while loop will do two steps at each node; print the data field, then advance the temp reference.
-
The statement, temp = temp.getNext(), is a very important one, this moves temp to the next node.
