C: Empty a linked list? (solved)

[jho]

Hello (again ),

I have a singly linked list. At the certain point it needs to be emptied because it will be populated with new values. How can I empty it?

I thought about setting the first entry's pointer to the next one to be NULL. But this still leaves the first entry intact. And as far as I understand, it would still leave all the previous entries to the memory. How would I delete them? Memory management isn't my strongest points. ^^

Edit: Thanks for the answers, got it.

[barophobia]

1) find the first item call it a
2) find the next after a item call it b
3) delete a
4) set a to be b
5) goto step 2 and repeat until you zap your entire list
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[jho]

[timeBandit]

If you allocated the nodes using malloc(), yes, pass the pointer to free().

When you have questions about correct usage of a library function, such as when learning from example code (as I suspect you may be doing in this case), the manual page is always a good place to start. It often includes examples of correct usage and references to complementary functions. For example, man 3 malloc would have directed you to the free() routine. (Section 3 of the UNIX manuals covers development information such as standard C and kernel routines. You usually need not give the section number except in those few instances where a library function has the same name as a command (e.g., printf.)
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