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Detecting Linked List Cycles
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Detecting Linked List Cycles

EasyPython

Problem

Supermicro server telemetry jobs may process records through a singly linked list. Given an encoded linked list, determine whether following its next pointers eventually revisits a node.

Use Floyd's tortoise-and-hare algorithm. The list is represented by an array of next-node indices: next_indices[i] is the index reached from node i, or -1 if the node has no successor. The list begins at head. You may assume every successor index is valid or -1.

Return true if the list contains a cycle and false otherwise. Do not modify the input.

Formal Specification

Implement has_cycle(next_indices, head), where next_indices is a list of integers and head is an integer node index. Return a boolean.

Constraints

  • 0 <= len(next_indices) <= 10^5
  • -1 <= next_indices[i] < len(next_indices)
  • head is -1 or a valid index
  • The input represents a singly linked list
  • Use O(1) auxiliary space

Function Signature

def has_cycle(next_indices, head):
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