Welcome to our hands-on exploration of linked lists! Like a necklace of interconnected links, a linked list is a collection of elements, each pointing to the next. Today, we're moving from theory to practice, and you'll learn to reverse a linked list using a stack and determine the length of a linked list through our practical examples. These skills will give you a deeper understanding of how these structures work.

In this lesson, we will use the following LinkedList implementation for both considered problems:

It is the same as we had in the previous lesson.

Consider a to-do list on sticky notes, where each task points to the next by stacking on top. You'd want first to reverse this stack to focus on the most recent tasks. Similarly, to reverse the order of a linked list, we'll use a stack data structure.

Imagine an application feature displaying user activities, with the most recent ones appearing first. This requires reversing the list of events to display the latest entries.

A stack's Last-In-First-Out (LIFO) property can be leveraged here to reverse the list succinctly. Pushing the list nodes' values onto the stack and then popping them out naturally reverses their order.

We can now build a function that takes the list and returns a reversed array:

Every push adds an element to the stack, and every pop removes the last added element, resulting in a reversed order.

Calculating the number of elements in a sequence resembles counting pearls in a pearl necklace. We need to determine how many pearls are tied together in our linked list, which represents the list's length.

Suppose you manage a subscription service with a list of subscribers. In that case, calculating how many subscribers are active is similar to determining the list length: each subscriber is linked to the next in your records.

To count our subscribers more efficiently, we can iterate through the list while maintaining a count of each node we encounter.

To tally the nodes in our linked list:

The while loop ensures we visit each node, and the counter's progression is analogous to noting each subscriber as you review your records.

In today's session, you practiced reversing a linked list using stacks and measuring the length of a linked list. These examples bridged theoretical understanding with practical application, reflecting tasks developers routinely face. Through this guided practice, your skills with linked lists and knowledge of when to use specific data structures is improved!