I haven't worked with linked lists in a long time, and I can't figure out why this code fails. I'm trying to create a very simple circular linked list with exactly 5 nodes. I will never need to insert additional nodes nor delete existing ones.

I get a 'node' has no member named 'next' error. Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong? Thanks.

typedef struct {
    char payload[1024];
    int x;
    node* next;
} node;

node* root_ptr;
node this_node; 

root_ptr = malloc(sizeof(node *));
root_ptr = &this_node; //keep a pointer to the root
int i;
for (i=0; i<5; i++) {
    node next_node;
    this_node.next = &next_node;
    this_node = next_node;
}
this_node.next = root_ptr;

try this:

int main(){

    // create root and helper nodes
    node * root_ptr;
    node * this_node = (node *)malloc(sizeof(node)); 

    this_node->x = 0;

    root_ptr = this_node; //keep a pointer to the root
    int i;
    // create list
    for (i=1; i<5; i++) {
        node * next_node = malloc(sizeof(node));
        next_node->x = i;
        this_node->next = next_node;
        this_node = next_node;
    }
    // complete cycle
    this_node->next = root_ptr;

    this_node = root_ptr;
    // check
    for (i=0; i<5; i++){
        printf("%d\n", this_node->x);
        this_node=this_node->next;
    }
    return 0;
}

note that it's a generally bad idea to assign stack memory in a link list

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