title: What does "this" refer to in Linked List example?
body: <p>So I'm skimming through <em>Cracking the Coding Interview</em> to brush up on some interview stuff and I ran across this linked list implementation, and maybe it's been a while but it's completely going over my head.  I understand most of it, except for one specific line, and it's throwing me off.  I'll post the code below (for reference, the book doesn't mention language but it appears to be Java.)</p>
  
  <pre class="lang-java prettyprint-override"><code>class Node {
      Node next  = null;
      int data;
  
      public Node(int d) {
          data = d;
      }
  
      void appendToTail(int d) {
          Node end = new Node(d);
          Node n = this;
          while(n.next != null) {
              n = n.next;
          }
          n.next = end;
      }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I'm a little confused on the line: <code>Node n = this</code> - I'm not sure what <code>this</code> is referring to, unless it's talking about <code>next</code> - why not just set it to <code>null</code> in that case?</p>