In a traversal loop, what condition typically signals the end of the list?

• A. The current node pointer is nullptr
• B. The current node equals head
• C. The current node equals tail
• D. The current node's data is zero

Answer: (A)

Traversing a linked list proceeds by following each node’s next pointer until there is no next node left. The end is signaled by the current node reference becoming null (nullptr in C/C++, None in Python, null in Java). This lets the loop stop cleanly once you’ve processed every actual node. A loop might look like iterating while the current pointer isn’t null, processing the current node, then moving to the next one. Since a node’s data value could be anything—including zero—data isn’t a reliable indicator of termination. The last node’s next points to null, and that null end is what marks the stop, not the head or tail alone.