Data Structures and

Algorithms
Trees

Instructor: Javid Ali

Preliminaries
 A tree can be defined in several ways. One natural
way to define a tree is recursively.
 A tree is a collection of nodes. The collection can be
empty; otherwise, a tree consists of a distinguished
node r, called the root, and zero or more nonempty
(sub)trees T1, T2, …, Tk, each of whose roots are
connected by a directed edge from r.
 The root of each subtree is said to be a child of r,
and r is the parent of each subtree root.
root

T1 T2 T3 T4 … T10
 Preliminaries
 From the recursive definition, we find that a tree is a collection of N nodes, one of which
is the root, and N-1 edges. That there are N-1 edges follows from the fact that each
edge connects some node to its parent, and every node except the root has one parent.

A
 The root is A.
 Node E has A as a parent and I, J as
children.
 Each node may have an arbitrary
B C D E F G number of children, possibly zero.
 Nodes with no children are known as
leaves.
H I J
 Nodes with the same parent are
siblings.
 Grandparent and grandchild
relations can be defined in a similar
K L
manner.
 Preliminaries
 A path from node n1 to nk is defined as a sequence of
nodes n1, n2, n3…, nk such that ni is the parent of ni+1 for
1i<k.

 The length of this path is the number of edges on the

path, namely k-1. There is a path of length zero from
every node to itself. Notice that in a tree there is exactly
one path from the root to each node.
 Preliminaries
 For any node ni, the depth of ni is the length of the
unique path from the root to ni. Thus, the root is at depth
0. The height of ni is the length of the longest path from
ni to a leaf. Thus all leaves are at height 0. The height of a
tree is equal to the height of the root. The depth of a tree
is equal to the depth of the deepest leaf; this is always
equal to the height of the tree.

 If there is a path from n1 to n2, then n1 is an ancestor of

n2 and n2 is a descendant of n1. If n1n2, then n1 is a
proper ancestor of n2 and n2 is a proper descendant
of n1.
Preliminaries
 For example, E is at depth 1 and height 2; D is at
depth 1 and height 1; the height of the tree is 3.
A

B C D E F G

H I J

K L
Implementation of Trees
 One way to implement a tree would be to have in
each node, besides its data, a pointer to each child of
the node.

 However, since the number of children per node can

vary so greatly and is not known in advance, it might
be infeasible to make the children direct links in the
data structure, because there would be too much
wasted space.

 The solution is simple: Keep the children of each

node in a linked list of tree nodes.
Implementation of Trees
struct TreeNode
{
char Element;
TreeNode* FirstChild;
TreeNode* NextSibling;
}
 Implementation of Trees
A A

B C D E F G B C D E F G

H I J H I J

K L K L

Arrows that point downward are FirstChild pointers.

Arrows that go left to right are NextSibling pointers.
Node E has both a pointer to a sibling (F) and a pointer to a child (I), while some nodes have neither.
 Implementation of Trees
 Example: Please give the first child/next sibling
representation of the following tree.
A

B C D E

F G H I J

K L
 Application of Trees
 There are many applications for trees. One of the popular
uses is the directory structure in many common operating
systems.
/usr*

mark* alex* bill* course*

junk.c prog1.r prog2.r

 The root of this directory is /usr.

 The asterisk next to the name indicates that /usr is itself a
directory.
 Tree Traversal
 The purpose of tree traversal: visit (perform some
operations on) each node in a tree systematically:

 Preorder traversal: the operations at a node are

performed before (pre) its children are processed.

 Postorder traversal: the operations at a node are

performed after (post) its children are processed.

 The operations on each node are performed recursively.

 Tree Traversal
 Example: Suppose the operation on each node is print
the name of this node. Please give the outputs of the
preorder and postorder traversals on the following tree.
A

B C D E

F G H I J

K L
 Tree Traversal
 Answer:

 Preorder traversal: A B F G C H K L D E I J

 Postorder traversal: F G B K L H C D I J E A
 Tree Traversal
 Example: Suppose A
the operation on
each node is print
the name of this B C D
node. Please give
the outputs of the
preorder and E
postorder traversals F G
on the left tree.
H I J

K L
 Tree Traversal
 Answer:

 Preorder traversal: A B C E H I J K L D F G

 Postorder traversal: B H I K L J E C F G D A
Tree Traversal
 Write codes to implement the preorder and postorder
tree traversal.
 Binary Trees
 A binary tree is a tree in which no node can have more than two children.
 A property of a binary tree that is sometimes important is that the depth of an average binary tree is
considerably smaller than N if the tree has N nodes.

root
B

C
TL TR

Generic binary tree: a root and two D

subtrees, TL and TR, both of which
could possibly be empty Worst-case binary tree
Implementation of Binary
Trees
 Because a binary tree has at most two children, we can
keep direct pointers to them.
 A node is a structure consisting of the Key information
plus two pointers (Left and Right) to other nodes.
 Many of the rules that apply to linked lists will apply to
trees as well.
 When an insertion is performed, a node will have to be
created by a call to malloc.
 Nodes can be freed after deletion by calling free.
Implementation of Binary
Trees
struct BinaryTreeNode
{
char Element;
BinaryTreeNode* Left;
BinaryTreeNode* Right;
}
Binary Tree Traversal
 Preorder traversal: First, the operations at the
node are performed; second, the left child, and then
the right child.

 Postorder traversal: First, the operations at a

node’s left child are performed; second, the right
child, and then the node.

 Inorder traversal: First, the operations at a node’s

left child are performed; second, the node, and then
the right node.
 Binary Tree Traversal
 Example: Suppose A
the operation on
B
each node is print C
the name of this
node. Please give D E F
the outputs of the
preorder, postorder,
and inorder G H
traversals on the left
tree.
I J K

L
 Binary Tree Traversal
 Answer:

 Preorder traversal: A B D E G I J L H K C F

 Postorder traversal: D I L J G K H E B F C A

 Inorder traversal: D B I G L J E H K A C F
 Binary Tree Traversal
 Example: Suppose A
the operation on
B
each node is print C
the name of this
node. Please give D G
H
the outputs of the
preorder, postorder,
and inorder E I J K
traversals on the left
tree.
L
 Binary Tree Traversal
 Answer:

 Preorder traversal: A B D E C G I J L H K

 Postorder traversal: E D B I L J G K H C A

 Inorder traversal: D E B A I G L J C H K
Binary Tree Traversal
 Write codes to implement the preorder, postorder,
and inorder binary tree traversal.
 Expression Trees
 One of the principal uses of binary trees is in the area of
compiler design.
 Expression tree for (a+b*c)+((d*e+f)*g)
+  The leaves of an expression tree are operands,
such as constants or variable names
 The other nodes contain operators.
 This particular tree happens to be binary, because
all of the operations are binary
+ *  It is possible for nodes to have more than two
children. It is also possible for a node to have only
one child, such as unary minus operator
a *
 We can evaluate an expression tree, T, by applying
+ g the operator at the root to the values obtained by
recursively evaluating the left and right subtrees.
 In this example, the left subtree evaluates to a+
(b*c) and the right subtree evaluates to ((d*e)
b c * f +f)*g. The entire tree therefore represents (a+
(b*c))+(((d*e)+f)*g).

d e
Expression Trees
 We can produce an (overly parenthesized) infix expression by
recursively producing a parenthesized left expression, then
printing out the operator at the root, and finally recursively
producing a parenthesized right expression. This general strategy
(left, node, right) is an inorder traversal;

 An alternate traversal strategy is to recursively print out the left

subtrees, the right subtrees, and then the operators. If we apply
this strategy to our tree above, the output is abc*+de*f+g*+,
which is easily seen to be the postfix representation. This
traversal strategy (left, right, node) is a postorder traversal.

 A third traversal strategy is to print out the operator first and then
recursively print out the left and right subtrees. The resulting
expression, ++a*bc*+*defg, is the less useful prefix notation and
the traversal strategy (node, left, right) is a preorder traversal.
Constructing an Expression
Tree
 We now give an algorithm to convert a postfix
expression into an expression tree.

 We read the expression one symbol at a time.

 If the symbol is an operand, we create a one-node tree

and push a pointer to it onto a stack.

 If the symbol is an operator, we pop pointers to two

trees T1 and T2 from the stack (T1 is popped first) and
form a new tree whose root is the operator and whose
left and right children point to T2 and T1, respectively. A
pointer to this new tree is then pushed onto the stack.
Constructing an Expression
Tree
 Input: ab+cde+**
 The first two symbols are operands, so we create one-node trees and push pointers to them
onto a stack. For convenience, we will have the stack grow from left to right in the diagrams.

a b

 Next, a ‘+’ is read, so two pointers to trees are popped, a new

tree is formed, and a pointer to it is pushed onto the stack.
+

 Next, c, d, and e are read, and for each a one-node tree is created a b
and a pointer to the corresponding tree is pushed onto the stack.

+ c d e

a b
Constructing an Expression
Tree
 Now a ‘+’ is read, so two trees are merged.

+ c +

a b d e
 Continuing, a ‘*’ is read, so we pop two tree pointers and form
a new tree with a ‘*’ as root.

+ *

a b c +

d e
Constructing an Expression
Tree
 Finally, the last symbol is read, two trees are merged, and a
pointer to the final tree is left on the stack.

+ *

a b c +

d e
Constructing an Expression
Tree
 Write codes to implement the process of constructing an
expression tree.
The Search Tree ADT-Binary
Search Trees
 An important application of binary trees is their use in
searching.
 Let us assume that each node in the tree is assigned a
key value. We will also assume that all the keys are
distinct.
 The property that makes a binary tree into a binary
search tree is that for every node, X, in the tree, the
values of all the keys in its left subtree are smaller
than the key value in X, and the values of all the keys
in its right subtree are larger than the key value in X.
 Notice that this implies that all the elements in the
tree can be ordered in some consistent manner.
The Search Tree ADT-Binary
Search Trees
6 6

2 8 2 8

1 4 1 4

3 3 7

 The tree on the left is a binary search tree, but the

tree on the right is not.
The Search Tree ADT-Binary
Search Trees
 We now give brief descriptions of the operations that are
usually performed on binary search trees. Note that because of
the recursive definition of trees, it is common to write these
routings recursively.

(1) MakeEmpty: this operation is mainly for initialization.

(2) Find: This operation generally requires returning a pointer to

the node in tree T that has key X, or NULL if there is no such
node. If T is NULL, then we can just return NULL. Otherwise, if
the key stored at T is X, we can return T. Otherwise, we make a
recursive call on a subtree of T, either left or right, depending
on the relationship of X to the key stored in T.

(3) FindMin and FindMax: These routines return the position of

the smallest and largest elements in the tree, respectively.
The Search Tree ADT-Binary
Search Trees
(4) Insert: To insert X into tree T, proceed down the tree as you
would with a Find. If X is found, do nothing (or “update”
something). Otherwise, insert X at the last spot on the path
traversed.
Example: To insert 5, we traverse the tree as though a Find were
occurring. At the node with key 4, we need to go right, but there
is no subtree, so 5 is not in the tree, and this is the correct spot.

6 6

2 8 2 8  Binary search
trees before
1 4 1 4
and after
inserting 5.

3 3 5
The Search Tree ADT-Binary
Search Trees
(5) Delete: Once we have found the node to be deleted, we need
to consider several possibilities.
(a) If the node is a leaf, it can be deleted immediately.
(b) If the node has one child, the node can be deleted after its
parent adjusts a pointer to bypass the node.

6 6
 Deletion of a
2 8 2 8 node (4) with
one child,
1 4 1 4 before and
after.

3 3
The Search Tree ADT-Binary
Search Trees
(c) The complicated case deals with a node with two children. The
general strategy is to replace the data of this node with the
smallest data of the right subtree and recursively delete that
node. Because the smallest node in the right subtree cannot
have a left child, the second Delete is an easy one.
6 6

2 8 3 8  Deletion of a node (2) with

two children, before and after.
 Node (2) is replaced with the
1 5 1 5 smallest data in its right
subtree (3), and then that
node is deleted as before.

3 3

4 4
The Search Tree ADT-Binary
Search Trees
 Write codes to implement the previous operations.
Binary Search Tree Traversals
 Inorder traversal
 Preorder traversal
 Postorder traversal
Homework
 Exercises
 4.1

 4.2

 4.3

 4.8

 4.9

 4.32 (Don’t care the requirement on running time)

 4.39