C++ - Single Linked List - Ideas

[sankaran1984]

I want to write a method to remove consecutive items with duplicate data values from a singly linked list. The method should return the number of items removed. The method should clean up memory as required, and should assume that memory was allocated using new.

For example, passing in the list
->a->b->c->c->a->b->b->b->a->null
should result in
->a->b->c->a->b->a->null
and return 3

The list item definition and function declaration are given below

struct litem {
     char data;
     litem* next;
};

int remove_consecutive_duplicates( litem*& list );

I have a simple logic to check the next element recursively & removing the element if its duplicate.
But, i would like to know how many efficient ways to do this ? All ideas welcome from C++ gurus..