Query regarding destructor

#1

please tell why are we deleting the next node in the destructor and why not the current one.

#2

@Parmeet-Kalsi-1631789033630118
first thing you need to know is that the destructor of a class object is invoked when the class object goes out of scope or is deleted using delete (if dynamically allocated ),
Now let’s say we have a linked list {1->2->3->4->5} at some index of hash table ,say .hash[idx] points to the head of that linked list i.e.1 now when hash table goes out of scope then the constructor will be invoked for hash[idx] which is node 1, now if node 1 is deleted only then we will have 2->3->4->5 still remaining in the memory with no pointer leading to them, so we try to delete the entire linked list recursively ,
let’s see the code :-

~Node(){
    if(next!=NULL){
        delete next;
    }
}

here this is an example of recursive destructor
so if we have linked list as 1->2 ->3 ->4 ->5 -> NULL
and when we delete 1 then destructor is invoked for 1 and it checks for its next which is present and is the address for 2 thus invoking destructor of 2 similarly we reach 5 and check for its next which is NULL thus is returned to 4 and 5 is deleted and we return to 3 and 4 is deleted and finally we will be left with 1.
try to dry run it yourself
In case of any doubt feel free to ask :slight_smile:
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