Traverse and Print

Walk from the head pointer to null, visiting each node exactly once without random indexing.

Algorithm

The replay labels nodes by value, such as node(20), and never exposes object identity or memory addresses. This Lua DSA implementation uses the same small chain as the rest of the DSA track.

Basic Implementation

basic.lua

local function node(value, next)
    return { value = value, next = next }
end

local function render(head)
    local parts = {}
    local cursor = head
    while cursor ~= nil do
        parts[#parts + 1] = tostring(cursor.value)
        cursor = cursor.next
    end
    return table.concat(parts, " -> ") .. " -> null"
end

local head = node(10, node(20, node(30, nil)))
print(render(head))

Complexity

Time: O(n)
Space: O(1)

Implementation notes

Keep the explicit node and pointer/reference operations; array shortcuts hide the linked-list state this lesson is meant to replay.
The final output prints the chain in a deterministic a -> b -> null form for cross-language comparison.

cursor A cursor reference names the node currently being visited.

null stop Traversal ends when the cursor reaches the null marker.