为什么是链表而不是数组?有些人已经说过，插入和删除的速度更快。

但也许我们不需要生活在两者的限制下，同时获得两者的优点……是吗?

对于数组删除，您可以使用'Deleted'字节来表示一行已被删除的事实，因此不再需要重新组织数组。为了减轻插入或快速更改数据的负担，可以使用链表。然后，在引用它们的时候，让你的逻辑先搜索一个，再搜索另一个。因此，将它们结合使用可以使您获得两者的最佳效果。

If you have a really large array, you could combine it with another, much smaller array or linked list where the smaller one hold thes 20, 50, 100 most recently used items. If the one needed is not in the shorter linked list or array, you go to the large array. If found there, you can then add it to the smaller linked list/array on the presumption that 'things most recently used are most likey to be re-used' ( and yes, possibly bumping the least recently used item from the list ). Which is true in many cases and solved a problem I had to tackle in an .ASP security permissions checking module, with ease, elegance, and impressive speed.

维基百科上有很好的章节介绍了它们的区别。

Linked lists have several advantages over arrays. Elements can be inserted into linked lists indefinitely, while an array will eventually either fill up or need to be resized, an expensive operation that may not even be possible if memory is fragmented. Similarly, an array from which many elements are removed may become wastefully empty or need to be made smaller. On the other hand, arrays allow random access, while linked lists allow only sequential access to elements. Singly-linked lists, in fact, can only be traversed in one direction. This makes linked lists unsuitable for applications where it's useful to look up an element by its index quickly, such as heapsort. Sequential access on arrays is also faster than on linked lists on many machines due to locality of reference and data caches. Linked lists receive almost no benefit from the cache. Another disadvantage of linked lists is the extra storage needed for references, which often makes them impractical for lists of small data items such as characters or boolean values. It can also be slow, and with a naïve allocator, wasteful, to allocate memory separately for each new element, a problem generally solved using memory pools.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linked_list

It's easier to store data of different sizes in a linked list. An array assumes every element is exactly the same size. As you mentioned, it's easier for a linked list to grow organically. An array's size needs to be known ahead of time, or re-created when it needs to grow. Shuffling a linked list is just a matter of changing what points to what. Shuffling an array is more complicated and/or takes more memory. As long as your iterations all happen in a "foreach" context, you don't lose any performance in iteration.

合并两个链表(特别是两个双链表)比合并两个数组快得多(假设合并是破坏性的)。前者取O(1)，后者取O(n)。

编辑:澄清一下，我在这里指的是无序意义上的“合并”，而不是归并排序。也许"串联"这个词更合适。

另一个很好的原因是链表非常适合高效的多线程实现。这样做的原因是，更改往往是局部的——只影响数据结构局部部分的插入和删除的一两个指针。所以，你可以让多个线程在同一个链表上工作。更重要的是，可以使用cas类型的操作创建无锁版本，并完全避免沉重的锁。

使用链表，迭代器还可以在进行修改时遍历列表。在修改没有冲突的乐观情况下，迭代器可以在没有争用的情况下继续。

对于数组，任何修改数组大小的更改都可能需要锁定数组的很大一部分，事实上，这是在整个数组上没有全局锁的情况下完成的，因此修改会停止全局事务。

While many of you have touched upon major adv./dis of linked list vs array, most of the comparisons are how one is better/ worse than the other.Eg. you can do random access in array but not possible in linked list and others. However, this is assuming link lists and array are going to be applied in a similar application. However a correct answer should be how link list would be preferred over array and vice-versa in a particular application deployment. Suppose you want to implement a dictionary application, what would you use ? Array : mmm it would allow easy retrieval through binary search and other search algo .. but lets think how link list can be better..Say you want to search "Blob" in dictionary. Would it make sense to have a link list of A->B->C->D---->Z and then each list element also pointing to an array or another list of all words starting with that letter ..

A -> B -> C -> ...Z
|    |    |
|    |    [Cat, Cave]
|    [Banana, Blob]
[Adam, Apple]

Now is the above approach better or a flat array of [Adam,Apple,Banana,Blob,Cat,Cave] ? Would it even be possible with array ? So a major advantage of link list is you can have an element not just pointing to the next element but also to some other link list/array/ heap/ or any other memory location. Array is a one flat contigous memory sliced into blocks size of the element it is going to store.. Link list on the other hand is a chunks of non-contigous memory units (can be any size and can store anything) and pointing to each other the way you want. Similarly lets say you are making a USB drive. Now would you like files to be saved as any array or as a link list ? I think you get the idea what I am pointing to :)