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Comment by jast | Hacker News Reader

Funny, I also fired textmate and started solving the problem in C :-)

It took me around 20 minutes to write all the extra code and 9 to write the reverse function (including the testing and all).

The problem was not knowing how to solve it but more the pressure of looking at the clock and seeing the time flying away. Because of that, some minor mistakes were done and naturally you start to get nervous and waste more time. In a phone interview I would probably even do more minor mistakes and fail it.

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What extra code? I've got a struct definition, a print_list function, cons, and a really dumb testing driver that builds the list [1 2 3], reversing and printing it a few times throughout its construction. The line count of all that [EDIT: I meant "everything except the testing driver"] is about equal to the line count of my reverse.

That extra code :-) First I wrote everything to manipulate a linked list and test it and then I wrote the reverse function. Since I wrote a insert at front function, the reverse function is small. I must add that I am not a fast typer.

How long is your reverse? Mine is 14 lines (see below), and I doubt I could code the rest in that length.

   struct LinkedList {
      LinkedList* next;
      int data;
   }

   void reverseLL(linkedList* ll){
      if (ll==NULL) return NULL;
      LinkedList* newList;
      prev = NULL;
      for (;;) {
         newList = malloc(LinkedList);
         newList->data = ll->data;
         newList->next = prev;
         if (ll->next==NULL) break;
         prev = newList;
         ll = ll->next;
      }
      return newList;
   }

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