搜索链接列表和数组时有什么区别？

Question

I understand that array's value can be accessed directly by their position and linked list have to go through them one by one but have no idea of how to explain the difference in terms of their overhead and storage when the search is happening.

( I am think more in terms of does the previous node need to temporary store somewhere while try to access the next node any additional storage or overhead on the system part when go through them? and same when search through an array)

Can anyone give me a detail of what happen when search in each structure? or simply point to a right direction

Answer 1

An array is a vectorial variable of a fixed size.

A Linked List has no specified size: each element of the list contains a pointer to the next element. That's why you need to iterate through it sequentially. The advantage here, is that the structure shall not be allocated in a sequential block of memory, and doesn't need to resize if you add more elements in it.

Also in an array, if you remove an element, you need to shift all previous elements. If you insert an element in the middle of an array, you need to shift elements to make space for the new one. In lists you just update the pointers:

On the other side, array can be accessed randomly and don't need sequential access: so they are faster to search for objects, to sort, etc.

Answer 2

拥有对列表元素的随机访问权限，可以实现二进制搜索之类的搜索算法，而使用链接列表则不可行。