Delete a Linked List node at a given position in C

March 19, 2025

C Program to Delete a Node in a Singly Linked List at a specific position

We will be writing a Program in C to delete a node at a given position from a Singly Linked List. We will look at different approaches to Delete a specific node in Linked List in C. Let us check the possible method below –

delete a node

Approach to Delete a specific node in linked list C

  • Accept the Initial Linked List from the user
  • Accept the node position that the user wants to delete
  • Check if it’s a valid position the value should range between [1, size] of the linked list
  • Traverse till the (pos-1)th node
  • Change the next pointer of (pos-1)th node to (pos+1)th node
  • Free the memory for pos’th node.
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Program for Singly Linked List deletion at a specific position in C

Run 
// Program for Singly Linked List deletion at a specific position in C
#include<stdio.h>
#include<stdlib.h>

struct Node
{
  int data;
  struct Node *next;
};
// current size of Linked List
int size = 0;

void insert (struct Node **head, int data)
{
  struct Node *new_node = (struct Node *) malloc (sizeof (struct Node));

  new_node->data = data;
  new_node->next = *head;
  *head = new_node;
  size++;
}

void deletePosition (int pos, struct Node **head)
{
  struct Node *temp = *head;
  struct Node *prevNode;

  if (pos < 1 || pos > size)
    {
      printf ("Invalid\n");
      return;
    }

  // delete the 1st node
  if (pos == 1)
    {
      *head = (*head)->next;
      printf ("%d deleted\n", temp->data);
      free (temp);
      size--;
      return;
    }

  // traverse to the pos'th node
  while (--pos)
    {
      prevNode = temp;
      temp = temp->next;
    }
  // change prevNode node's next node to nth node's next node
  prevNode->next = temp->next;
  // delete this nth node
  printf ("%d deleted\n", temp->data);
  free (temp);
  size--;
}

void display (struct Node *node)
{

  printf ("Linked List : ");

  // as linked list will end when Node is Null
  while (node != NULL)
    {
      printf ("%d ", node->data);
      node = node->next;
    }
  printf ("\n");
}

int main ()
{
  struct Node *head = NULL;

  insert (&head, 50);
  insert (&head, 40);
  insert (&head, 30);
  insert (&head, 20);
  insert (&head, 10);

  display (head);

  // delete the 2nd node
  deletePosition (2, &head);

  // delete the 4th node
  deletePosition (4, &head);

  display (head);

  return 0;
}

Output

Linked List : 10 20 30 40 50 
20 deleted
50 deleted
Linked List : 10 30 40