.data
elmnt01:  .word  1
next01:   .word  elmnt02

 . . . . . 

elmnt02:  .word  2
next02:   .word  .....

Links of a Linked List

A symbolic address such as elmnt02 is a symbol in a source program that stands for an address. The above program fragment corresponds to this picture:

The two elements are not necessarily next to each other in memory. The following fragment implements the entire five element linked list:

          .data
elmnt01:  .word  1
          .word  elmnt02

elmnt02:  .word  2
          .word  elmnt03

elmnt03:  .word  3
          .word  elmnt04

elmnt04:  .word  5
          .word  elmnt05

elmnt05:  .word  7
          .word  0

Each element contains the address of its successor element. The field that holds this address is called the next field or (to avoid ambiguity) the link field. There is no need to provide a label for this field in the elements.

In a practical program you would never implement a linked list by explicitly coding it this way. And usually there is more data per element than a single integer. But for now let us keep it simple.

          .data
elmnt05:  .word  7
          .word  0

elmnt02:  .word  2
          .word  elmnt03

elmnt03:  .word  3
          .word  elmnt04

elmnt01:  .word  1
          .word  elmnt02

elmnt04:  .word  5
          .word  elmnt05