Recursive Data Type - Example

Example

See also: Recursion (computer science)#Recursive data structures (structural recursion)

An example is the list type, in Haskell:

data List a = Nil | Cons a (List a)

This indicates that a list of a's is either an empty list or a cons cell containing an 'a' (the "head" of the list) and another list (the "tail").

Another example is a similar singly linked type in Java:

class List { E value; List next; }

This indicates that non-empty list of type E contains a data member of type E, and a reference to another List object for the rest of the list (or a null reference to indicate an empty rest of the list).

Read more about this topic:  Recursive Data Type

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