LinkedLists --- returning the next object in the list

Question

Hi,
My project is a college where i can input students using a linked list. In one of my classes 'StudentLinkedList' i have to return the next student in the list (where the current object is input into the method as a parameter).
So far i have
// Returns the next student object in the list
        public Student getNext(Student before) {
             Student before =
        }As you can see i have Student before as the parameter but i don't exactly know what i should assign that too. I don't want it to be the first object in the list or the last object in the list, it could be any student. Do you get me?
Another example of a method in my class which works is returning the first student object in the list...
// Returns the first Student object in the list
        public Student getFirstStudent() {
             if(size() > 0) {
             return list.getStudent();
             } else
                  System.out.println("There are no students in the college");
                  return null;
        }Thanks alot

Answer 1

Capsud wrote:
Ive gone on to put this in
// Returns the next student object in the list
        public Student getNext(Student before) {
             studentNode node = new StudentNode(); {
                  StudentNode before = node.getStudent();
             return node.getNext();
        }am i on the right track?I don't think so. Why are you overwriting "before" before you're using it? Don't you think that because it's included as a parameter, it's probably important?
Ah, I see, they're different types. Use a different variable name for before #2, call it beforeNode or something.
Anyway, this should be fairly simple if you break it down into steps:
1) Iterate through your list until you find a "node" such that node.getStudent().equals(before);
2) Return node.getNext().getStudent() (of course checking for null values along the way)