How are linked lists implemented without the use of pointer?

Question

It is easy to implement linked list in c++ where you have pointers. But how are they implemented in other languages (like java,python,etc). I don't want to use built-in class(which are supported in JAVA) for linked-list but what i want is how to replace pointers to create linked-list?

Answer 1

They are implemented using references which are essentially (excluding syntax) pointers that you can't do pointer arithmetic with (in some languages they also can't be null). In many languages, references are the default way of using variables, unlike C++ where the default is by-value.