7.5. List Element Implementations¶
7.5.1. List Element Implementations¶
When designing any container class, there are a number of design choices to be made regarding the data elements.
What to do if something can appear multiple times on a list? One option is to use a reference to elements. Another is to store separate copies. In general, the larger the elements and the more that they are duplicated, the more likely that pointers to shared elements is the better approach.
7.5.1.1. Homogeneity¶
The next issue to consider is whether to enforce homogeneity in the list elements. That is, should lists be restricted so that all data elements stored are of the same object type? Or should it be possible to store different types?
If you want to enforce homogeneity, the most rigid way is to simply define the elements to be of a fixed type. But that does not help if you want one list to store integers while another stores strings. A much more flexible approach is to use Java generics or C++ templates. In this way, the compiler will enforce that a given list will only store a single data type, while still allowing different lists to have different data types. Another approach is to store an object of the appropriate type in the header node of the list (perhaps an object of the appropriate type is supplied as a parameter to the list constructor), and then check that all insert operations on that list use the same element type. This approach is useful in a language like JavaScript that does not use strong typing, but does allow a program to test the type of an object.
In some applications, the designer would like to allow a given list
store elements with different types.
In Java, declaring the element to be of type Object will stop the
compiler from enforcing any type restrictions.
In C++, a similar effect can be achieved by using void* pointers.
7.5.1.2. Element Deletion¶
Our last design issue is what to do to the list elements when the list itself is deleted? This is a serious concern in a language like C++ that does not support automatic garbage collection.
