โ† Back to the linked lists page

Circular Linked List

The tail points back to the head. Iteration never "ends", which models anything that goes around forever.

What to know

  • Round-robin scheduling walks the circle giving each node a time slice.
  • The Josephus problem (survivor in a killing circle) has an O(n) recurrence.
  • Termination checks compare against the start node instead of null.

In the wild: CPU schedulers, multiplayer turn order, token-ring networks, carousel UIs.

Algorithms to reach for

Round-robin traversal

O(1) per step

Fair cyclic scheduling of tasks/players

Josephus elimination

O(n)

Find the surviving position in a circle

Practice problems โ€” with full guides

Each problem has its own page: progressive hints, how to approach it, and the full solution.