Remove duplicates from an unsorted linked list

Question

import java.util.*;
/*
 *  Remove duplicates from an unsorted linked list
 */
public class LinkedListNode {  
    public int data;  
    public LinkedListNode next;          


        

Answer 1

Iterate through the linked list, adding each element to a hash table. When we discover a duplicate element, we remove the element and continue iterating. We can do this all in one pass since we are using a linked list.

The following solution takes O(n) time, n is the number of element in the linked list.

public static void deleteDups (LinkedListNode n){
  Hashtable table = new Hashtable();
  LinkedListNode previous = null;
  while(n!=null){
      if(table.containsKey(n.data)){
          previous.next = n.next;
      } else {
          table.put(n.data, true);
          previous = n;
      }
      n = n.next;
  }
}