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Posts published in “Fast and Slow Pointers Traversal”

LeetCode 876. Middle of the Linked List (javascript)

By stone on March 27, 2021

Given a non-empty, singly linked list with head node head, return a middle node of linked list.

If there are two middle nodes, return the second middle node.

Example 1:

Input: [1,2,3,4,5]
Output: Node 3 from this list (Serialization: [3,4,5])
The returned node has value 3.  (The judge's serialization of this node is [3,4,5]).
Note that we returned a ListNode object ans, such that:
ans.val = 3, ans.next.val = 4, ans.next.next.val = 5, and ans.next.next.next = NULL.

Example 2:

Input: [1,2,3,4,5,6]
Output: Node 4 from this list (Serialization: [4,5,6])
Since the list has two middle nodes with values 3 and 4, we return the second one.

Note:

  • The number of nodes in the given list will be between 1 and 100.

Idea:

Use fast and slow pointers traversal

Solution:

/**
 * Definition for singly-linked list.
 * function ListNode(val, next) {
 *     this.val = (val===undefined ? 0 : val)
 *     this.next = (next===undefined ? null : next)
 * }
 */
/**
 * @param {ListNode} head
 * @return {ListNode}
 */
var middleNode = function(head) {
    let slow = head;
    let fast = head;
    
    while(fast) {
        if (!fast.next) break;
        fast = fast.next.next;
        slow = slow.next;
    }
    
    return slow;
};

LeetCode 141. Linked List Cycle (javascript)

By stone on March 27, 2021

Given head, the head of a linked list, determine if the linked list has a cycle in it.

There is a cycle in a linked list if there is some node in the list that can be reached again by continuously following the next pointer. Internally, pos is used to denote the index of the node that tail’s next pointer is connected to. Note that pos is not passed as a parameter.

Return true if there is a cycle in the linked list. Otherwise, return false.

Example 1:

Input: head = [3,2,0,-4], pos = 1
Output: true
Explanation: There is a cycle in the linked list, where the tail connects to the 1st node (0-indexed).

Example 2:

Input: head = [1,2], pos = 0
Output: true
Explanation: There is a cycle in the linked list, where the tail connects to the 0th node.

Example 3:

Input: head = [1], pos = -1
Output: false
Explanation: There is no cycle in the linked list.

Constraints:

  • The number of the nodes in the list is in the range [0, 104].
  • -105 <= Node.val <= 105
  • pos is -1 or a valid index in the linked-list.

Can you solve it using O(1) (i.e. constant) memory?

Idea:

Use fast and slow pointers traversal, you they can meet each other then there is a circle

Solution:

/**
 * Definition for singly-linked list.
 * function ListNode(val) {
 *     this.val = val;
 *     this.next = null;
 * }
 */

/**
 * @param {ListNode} head
 * @return {boolean}
 */
var hasCycle = function(head) {
    let fast = head;
    let slow = head;
    
    while (fast) {
        if (!fast.next) return false;
        fast = fast.next.next;
        slow = slow.next;
        if (fast === slow) return true;
    }
    return false;
};