Remove Linked List Elements

Problem

Given the head of a linked list and an integer val, remove all the nodes of the linked list that has Node.val == val, and return the new head.

 

Example 1:

Input: head = [1,2,6,3,4,5,6], val = 6
Output: [1,2,3,4,5]

Example 2:

Input: head = [], val = 1
Output: []

Example 3:

Input: head = [7,7,7,7], val = 7
Output: []

 

Constraints:

• The number of nodes in the list is in the range [0, 104].
• 1 <= Node.val <= 50
• 0 <= val <= 50

Solution

/**
 * Definition for singly-linked list.
 * function ListNode(val, next) {
 *     this.val = (val===undefined ? 0 : val)
 *     this.next = (next===undefined ? null : next)
 * }
 */
/**
 * @param {ListNode} head
 * @param {number} val
 * @return {ListNode}
 */
var removeElements = function(head, val) {
    const dummy = new ListNode(0, head); // for when head needs to be removed
    let cur = dummy;

    while (cur?.next) {
        if (cur.next.val === val) {
            cur.next = cur.next.next;
        } else {
            cur = cur.next;
        }
    }
    return dummy.next;
};

Traverse through the linked list and only keep nodes that do not have value val (otherwise skip the node).