title: Declaring a Linked List Node
body: <p>Please bear with me if its too BASIC or silly, but I want to know , when we have a node structure as :-</p>
  
  <pre><code>struct node {
   int data ;            //data
   struct node* next;    //pointer
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Why do we declare a node as :-</p>
  
  <pre><code>struct node* new_node = null;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>or</p>
  
  <pre><code>struct node* new_node= (struct node*)malloc(sizeof(struct node)); 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and why not just <code>struct node new_node = null</code>
  ?</p>