How would you find a cycle in a linked list?

Answer Posted / sujith

Simultaneously go through the list by ones (slow iterator)
and by twos (fast iterator). If there is a loop the fast
iterator will go around that loop twice as fast as the slow
iterator. The fast iterator will lap the slow iterator
within a single pass through the cycle. Detecting a loop is
then just detecting that the slow iterator has been lapped
by the fast iterator.

This solution is "Floyd's Cycle-Finding Algorithm" as
published in "Non-deterministic Algorithms" by Robert W.
Floyd in 1967. It is also called "The Tortoise and the Hare
Algorithm"

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