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 :)

A widely unappreciated argument for ArrayList and against LinkedList is that LinkedLists are uncomfortable while debugging. The time spent by maintenance developers to understand the program, e.g. to find bugs, increases and IMHO does sometimes not justify the nanoseconds in performance improvements or bytes in memory consumption in enterprise applicatons. Sometimes (well, of course it depends on the type of applications), it's better to waste a few bytes but have an application which is more maintainable or easier to understand.

例如，在Java环境中，使用Eclipse调试器，调试ArrayList将显示一个非常容易理解的结构:

arrayList   ArrayList<String>
  elementData   Object[]
    [0] Object  "Foo"
    [1] Object  "Foo"
    [2] Object  "Foo"
    [3] Object  "Foo"
    [4] Object  "Foo"
    ...

另一方面，查看LinkedList的内容并找到特定的对象变成了一个展开树的噩梦，更不用说过滤LinkedList内部信息所需的认知开销:

linkedList  LinkedList<String>
    header  LinkedList$Entry<E>
        element E
        next    LinkedList$Entry<E>
            element E   "Foo"
            next    LinkedList$Entry<E>
                element E   "Foo"
                next    LinkedList$Entry<E>
                    element E   "Foo"
                    next    LinkedList$Entry<E>
                    previous    LinkedList$Entry<E>
                    ...
                previous    LinkedList$Entry<E>
            previous    LinkedList$Entry<E>
        previous    LinkedList$Entry<E>

当集合不断增加和减少时，链表尤其有用。例如，很难想象尝试使用数组实现一个Queue(添加到末尾，从前面删除)—您将花费所有时间向下移动内容。另一方面，对于链表来说，这是微不足道的。

由于数组本质上是静态的，因此所有的操作 比如内存分配发生在编译的时候 只有。因此处理器必须在运行时投入更少的精力。

使用链表的唯一原因是插入元素很容易(删除也很容易)。

缺点可能是指针占用大量空间。

关于编码就更难了: 通常你不需要代码链表(或只需要一次)他们包括在内 STL 如果你还是要做的话，它就不那么复杂了。

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。