I have a linked list like this http://pastebin.com/bwF3jLb6 . The problem i am facing is i have initialized the list head and then i am doing malloc for that struct object. What i need is i want to make struct abc_st *r as head of linked list and other nodes after it. typedef struct abc { char client_id[18]; char mac[18]; st_list_head list; }abc_st; abc_st* check_fields (abc_st *ptr) { char cmd[500]; MYSQL_RES *result; MYSQL_ROW row; int num_rows; abc_st *r=NULL,*temp=NULL; INIT_LIST_HEAD(&r->list); // i have intialized the head here sprintf(cmd, "SELECT * FROM ABCD_TABLE WHERE MAC = %.4x", ptr->mac); /* Running the sql query to check for fields with value in database */ if (mysql_query(abc_db.db_handle, cmd)) { num_rows = -1; goto done; } result = mysql_store_result(abc_db.db_handle); if (result == NULL) { num_rows = -1; goto done; } num_rows = mysql_num_rows(result); while ((row = mysql_fetch_row(result))) { r= (abc_st *)malloc(sizeof(abc_st)); memcpy(r->mac,row[1],strlen(row[1])+1); memcpy(r->client_id,row[0],strlen(row[0])+1); How should i use list_add ? //list_add(struct list_head *new, struct list_head *head) //prototype of list_add // list_add(&temp->list,&r->list); //it will go wrong here, i want to make r(structure r as head and then add other strutcure objects) // r->link = NULL; //list_add(r, ptr); } done: mysql_free_result(result); return r; }