From 6665ab262c91d59af1b3e2ce9b731772a8f39c41 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Sahil Parekh <sahilparekh94@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2022 09:02:40 -0300
Subject: [PATCH] Add a check of the existance of a next node (#3051)

* Fix #2976

Co-authored-by: Sahil Prafulkumar Parekh <sh883193@dal.ca>
Co-authored-by: Yang Libin <contact@yanglibin.info>
---
 .../thealgorithms/datastructures/hashmap/hashing/HashMap.java | 4 +++-
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/src/main/java/com/thealgorithms/datastructures/hashmap/hashing/HashMap.java b/src/main/java/com/thealgorithms/datastructures/hashmap/hashing/HashMap.java
index 3225c437d..b583a71eb 100644
--- a/src/main/java/com/thealgorithms/datastructures/hashmap/hashing/HashMap.java
+++ b/src/main/java/com/thealgorithms/datastructures/hashmap/hashing/HashMap.java
@@ -89,7 +89,9 @@ public class HashMap {
         public void delete(int key) {
             if (!isEmpty()) {
                 if (first.getKey() == key) {
-                    first = null;
+                    Node next = first.next;
+                    first.next = null; // help GC
+                    first = next;
                 } else {
                     delete(first, key);
                 }