From: [email protected] 
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mulyadi Santosa
Sent: Thursday, May 07, 2015 3:53 AM
To: Huaicheng Li
Cc: kernelnewbies
Subject: Re: About head of kernel linked list structure



On Wed, May 6, 2015 at 5:39 PM, Huaicheng Li 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
In my understanding, the head initialised using LIST_HEAD_INIT or defined by 
LIST_HEAD corresponds to no *real* data field.
But it *does* have its own _next_ and _prev_ pointers. The _next_ pointer 
points to the first real node in the doubly linked list,
and the _prev_ pointer points to the last real node.

I'm wondering if the picture shown at the very bottom of 
http://kernelnewbies.org/FAQ/LinkedLists is wrong about this. Because
I believe head's _prev_ should point to the last node, which is at the very 
right. And the last node's _next_ should point to the head.
Just as shown like the red line.

Am I right?

[cid:[email protected]]


Hi Huachieng
AFAIK, if the linked list is not circular one, the last node's next should 
point to NULL, so does the head prev's. This is done so you know when you hit 
head i.e
if !(head.prev)
{
      // we're at head
}

Just pointing out that these lists are circular. Back in the old days we used 
to call them "rings".

>From list.h:

183 /**
184  * list_empty - tests whether a list is empty
185  * @head: the list to test.
186  */
187 static inline int list_empty(const struct list_head *head)
188 {
189         return head->next == head;
  190 }

Jeff Haran

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