Insert at Middle Specific Position in DSA C - Build from Scratch

Insert at Middle Specific Position in a Linked List

📖 Scenario: You are managing a list of tasks in a to-do app. Sometimes, you need to add a new task right in the middle of the list at a specific position.

🎯 Goal: Build a program that creates a linked list of tasks, then inserts a new task at a given middle position, and finally prints the updated list.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a singly linked list with 3 tasks: 'Task1', 'Task2', 'Task3'

Add an integer variable position set to 2 to specify the insertion point

Write a function to insert a new task 'NewTask' at the position in the linked list

Print the linked list after insertion showing all tasks in order

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Linked lists are used in many apps to manage ordered data like tasks, playlists, or messages where items can be added or removed dynamically.

💼 Career

Understanding linked list insertion is fundamental for software developers working with low-level data structures, embedded systems, or performance-critical applications.

1

Create the initial linked list with 3 tasks

Create a singly linked list with nodes containing char task[20] and struct Node *next. Initialize the list with these exact tasks in order: "Task1", "Task2", "Task3". Use a pointer head to the first node.

DSA C

# Define the Node struct and create the linked list with 3 tasks
// Your code here

Hint

Define a struct with a char task[20] and a Node *next. Allocate memory for each node and set the tasks exactly as given.

2

Add a variable for the insertion position

Add an integer variable called position and set it to 2 to specify where the new task will be inserted.

DSA C

#include 
#include 
#include 

typedef struct Node {
    char task[20];
    struct Node *next;
} Node;

int main() {
    Node *head = malloc(sizeof(Node));
    strcpy(head->task, "Task1");
    head->next = malloc(sizeof(Node));
    strcpy(head->next->task, "Task2");
    head->next->next = malloc(sizeof(Node));
    strcpy(head->next->next->task, "Task3");
    head->next->next->next = NULL;

    // Add position variable here
    // Your code here

    return 0;
}

Hint

Just add int position = 2; inside main().

3

Insert a new task at the given position

Write code to insert a new node with task "NewTask" at the position in the linked list. Use a pointer current to traverse the list until the node before the insertion point, then link the new node properly.

DSA C

    Node *newNode = malloc(sizeof(Node));
    strcpy(newNode->task, "NewTask");
    Node *current = head;
    for (int i = 1; i next;
    }
    newNode->next = current->next;
    current->next = newNode;
    // Print the linked list

Hint

Traverse the list to the node before position, then insert the new node by adjusting pointers.

4

Print the updated linked list

Use a pointer temp to traverse the linked list from head and print each task on its own line until the end of the list.

DSA C

Hint

Use a while loop to print each task until temp is NULL.