A linked list is a linear collection of data elements, where the order is not given by their physical locations in memory. Each element (called a node) has a secondary field that points to the next.

+----+---+   +----+---+ | 11 | ----->| 22 | x | +----+---+   +----+---+

This implements a basic linked list in RETRO. The words here are in a ll namespace. I'm not focusing on short names here; I expect that anything making extensive use of this will provide a set of aliases or extensions to make things more readable. E.g.,

Rather than:

#1 ll:node-n #2 ll:node-n ll:append #3 ll:node-n ll:append #4 ll:node-n ll:append

It's easy to write wrappers that allow for things like:

#1 < #2 > #3 > #4 >

Code

A node is a simple structure with two fields. The first (which I am calling head) holds a value and the second (next) holds a pointer to the next node in the list. If the next field points to an address of zero it is considered the end of the list.

So:

ll:head     (a-a)  return the address of the head field for a node ll:next     (a-a)  return the address of the next field for a node ll:node-n  (n-a)  create a new node with a head of n and a next of 0 ll:node     (-a)   create a new node with both fields set to 0

~~~ :ll:head ; :ll:next n:inc ;

:ll:node-n here swap , #0 , ; :ll:node here #0 , #0 , ;

~~~  Next is a helper word to find the end of a list and one to add a node to the end of the list.       ll:to-end   (a-a)  return the address of the last node in the list     ll:append   (aa-a) set the next field of a1 to the address of a2,                        return a1   ~~~
:ll:to-end [ ll:next dup fetch n:zero? ] until n:dec ; :ll:append swap [ ll:to-end ll:next store ] sip ;
~~~  I have a `for-each` combinator to handle performing an action on each node in a list. As an example:       :<  ll:node-n ;     :>  ll:node-n ll:append ;       #1 < #2 > #3 > #5 > #1 > #2 > #3 >     [ ll:head fetch n:put sp ] ll:for-each   The docstring for this is:       ll:for-each (aq-a) run q once for each node in the list, passing                        the node address to q each time.   ~~~
{{ 'Action var :perform [ @Action call ] sip ; :at-end? ll:next fetch dup n:zero? ; ---reveal--- :ll:for-each &Action [ !Action [ perform at-end? ] until drop ] v:preserve ;
~~~  # Undocumented   ~~~
:ll:length #0 swap [ [ n:inc ] dip ll:next dup fetch n:zero? ] until drop n:dec #1 n:max ;
~~~  Tests   ``` :< ll:node-n ; :>   ll:node-n ll:append ; #1 < #2 > #3 > #5 > #1 > #2 > #3 > [ ll:head fetch n:put sp ] ll:for-each ```