 Another approach that can be used with some languages involves having different data structures, but all have the initial fields, including the "next" (and "prev" if double linked list) references in the same location.After defining separate structures for each type of data, a generic structure can be defined that contains the minimum amount of data shared by all the other structures and contained at the top (beginning) of the structures.Then generic routines can be created that use the minimal structure to perform linked list type operations, but separate routines can then handle the specific data.