public boolean hasLoop(Node start){   
   TreeSet<Node> set = new TreeSet<Node>();
   Node lookingAt = start;

   while (lookingAt.peek() != null){
       lookingAt = lookingAt.next;

       if (set.contains(lookingAt){
           return false;
        } else {
        set.put(lookingAt);
        }

        return true;
}   
// Inside our Node class:        
public Node peek(){
   return this.next;
}

请原谅我的无知(我对Java和编程仍然相当陌生)，但为什么上面的方法不能工作呢?

I guess this doesn't solve the constant space issue... but it does at least get there in a reasonable time, correct? It will only take the space of the linked list plus the space of a set with n elements (where n is the number of elements in the linked list, or the number of elements until it reaches a loop). And for time, worst-case analysis, I think, would suggest O(nlog(n)). SortedSet look-ups for contains() are log(n) (check the javadoc, but I'm pretty sure TreeSet's underlying structure is TreeMap, whose in turn is a red-black tree), and in the worst case (no loops, or loop at very end), it will have to do n look-ups.

我看不出有任何方法可以让这花费固定的时间或空间，两者都会随着列表的大小而增加。

我将使用IdentityHashMap(假设还没有IdentityHashSet)并将每个节点存储到映射中。在存储节点之前，您可以对其调用containsKey。如果节点已经存在，则有一个周期。

ItentityHashMap使用==而不是.equals，这样你就可以检查对象在内存中的位置，而不是它是否具有相同的内容。

你可以使用弗洛伊德的周期寻找算法，也被称为乌龟和野兔算法。 其思想是对列表有两个引用，并以不同的速度移动它们。一个向前移动1个节点，另一个向前移动2个节点。

如果链表有一个循环 一定会见面的。 或者 这两个引用(或下一个) 将变为null。

实现算法的Java函数:

boolean hasLoop(Node first) {

    if(first == null) // list does not exist..so no loop either
        return false;

    Node slow, fast; // create two references.

    slow = fast = first; // make both refer to the start of the list

    while(true) {

        slow = slow.next;          // 1 hop

        if(fast.next != null)
            fast = fast.next.next; // 2 hops
        else
            return false;          // next node null => no loop

        if(slow == null || fast == null) // if either hits null..no loop
            return false;

        if(slow == fast) // if the two ever meet...we must have a loop
            return true;
    }
}

下面是检测循环的解决方案。

public boolean hasCycle(ListNode head) {
            ListNode slow =head;
            ListNode fast =head;

            while(fast!=null && fast.next!=null){
                slow = slow.next; // slow pointer only one hop
                fast = fast.next.next; // fast pointer two hops 

                if(slow == fast)    return true; // retrun true if fast meet slow pointer
            }

            return false; // return false if fast pointer stop at end 
        }

下面是快速/慢速解决方案的改进，它正确地处理奇数长度的列表并提高了清晰度。

boolean hasLoop(Node first) {
    Node slow = first;
    Node fast = first;

    while(fast != null && fast.next != null) {
        slow = slow.next;          // 1 hop
        fast = fast.next.next;     // 2 hops 

        if(slow == fast)  // fast caught up to slow, so there is a loop
            return true;
    }
    return false;  // fast reached null, so the list terminates
}

 // To detect whether a circular loop exists in a linked list
public boolean findCircularLoop() {
    Node slower, faster;
    slower = head;
    faster = head.next; // start faster one node ahead
    while (true) {

        // if the faster pointer encounters a NULL element
        if (faster == null || faster.next == null)
            return false;
        // if faster pointer ever equals slower or faster's next
        // pointer is ever equal to slower then it's a circular list
        else if (slower == faster || slower == faster.next)
            return true;
        else {
            // advance the pointers
            slower = slower.next;
            faster = faster.next.next;
        }
    }
}