Remove all leaf nodes from a Generic Tree or N-ary Tree Last Updated : 15 Jul, 2025 Comments Improve Suggest changes Like Article Like Report Given an n-ary tree containing positive node values, the task is to delete all the leaf nodes from the tree and print preorder traversal of the tree after performing the deletion.Note: An n-ary tree is a tree where each node can have zero or more children nodes. Unlike a binary tree, which has at most two children per node (left and right), the n-ary tree allows for multiple branches or children for each node. Examples:Input: Output: 1 2 4Explanation: The leaf nodes (5, 3, and 6) are removed from the tree. After deletion, the tree structure is: Approach: The idea is to recursively traverse each node, deleting it if it’s a leaf(all childrens are NULL) by returning NULL. For non-leaf nodes, remove any leaf children by updating the children array and continue until all leaves are removed.Below is the implementation of the above approach: C++ // C++ Code to delete all leaf nodes in // an N-ary tree #include <bits/stdc++.h> using namespace std; class Node { public: int data; vector<Node *> children; Node(int val) { data = val; } }; // Recursive function to delete all leaf nodes Node *deleteLeafNodes(Node *root) { // If the root is NULL, return NULL if (!root) { return nullptr; } // If the node itself is a leaf, // delete it if (root->children.empty()) { delete root; return nullptr; } // Process children and remove // any leaf nodes for (auto it = root->children.begin(); it != root->children.end();) { if (*it && (*it)->children.empty()) { delete *it; it = root->children.erase(it); } else { *it = deleteLeafNodes(*it); ++it; } } return root; } // Recursive function for preorder traversal // of the N-ary tree void preorderTraversal(Node *root) { if (!root) { return; } cout << root->data << " "; for (auto child : root->children) { preorderTraversal(child); } } int main() { // Representation of given N-ary tree // 1 // / | \ // 2 3 4 // / \ // 5 6 Node *root = new Node(1); root->children.push_back(new Node(2)); root->children.push_back(new Node(3)); root->children.push_back(new Node(4)); root->children[0]->children.push_back(new Node(5)); root->children[2]->children.push_back(new Node(6)); root = deleteLeafNodes(root); preorderTraversal(root); return 0; } Java // Java Code to delete all leaf nodes in // an N-ary tree import java.util.ArrayList; import java.util.Iterator; class Node { int data; ArrayList<Node> children; Node(int val) { data = val; children = new ArrayList<>(); } } class GfG { // Recursive function to delete all leaf nodes static Node deleteLeafNodes(Node root) { // If the root is NULL, return NULL if (root == null) { return null; } // If the node itself is a leaf, delete it if (root.children.isEmpty()) { return null; } // Process children and remove // any leaf nodes Iterator<Node> it = root.children.iterator(); while (it.hasNext()) { Node child = it.next(); if (child != null && child.children.isEmpty()) { it.remove(); } else { deleteLeafNodes(child); } } return root; } // Recursive function for preorder traversal // of the N-ary tree static void preorderTraversal(Node root) { if (root == null) { return; } System.out.print(root.data + " "); for (Node child : root.children) { preorderTraversal(child); } } public static void main(String[] args) { // Representation of given N-ary tree // 1 // / | \ // 2 3 4 // / \ // 5 6 Node root = new Node(1); root.children.add(new Node(2)); root.children.add(new Node(3)); root.children.add(new Node(4)); root.children.get(0).children.add(new Node(5)); root.children.get(2).children.add(new Node(6)); root = deleteLeafNodes(root); preorderTraversal(root); } } Python # Python Code to delete all leaf # nodes in an N-ary tree class Node: def __init__(self, val): self.data = val self.children = [] # Recursive function to delete # all leaf nodes def delete_leaf_nodes(root): # If the root is None, # return None if not root: return None # If the node itself is a # leaf, delete it if not root.children: return None # Process children and remove # any leaf nodes root.children = [delete_leaf_nodes(child) for child in root.children if child and child.children] return root # Recursive function for preorder traversal # of the N-ary tree def preorder_traversal(root): if not root: return print(root.data, end=" ") for child in root.children: preorder_traversal(child) if __name__ == "__main__": # Representation of given N-ary tree # 1 # / | \ # 2 3 4 # / \ # 5 6 root = Node(1) root.children.append(Node(2)) root.children.append(Node(3)) root.children.append(Node(4)) root.children[0].children.append(Node(5)) root.children[2].children.append(Node(6)) root = delete_leaf_nodes(root) preorder_traversal(root) C# // C# Code to delete all leaf nodes in // an N-ary tree using System; using System.Collections.Generic; class Node { public int data; public List<Node> children; public Node(int val) { data = val; children = new List<Node>(); } } class GfG { // Recursive function to delete all leaf nodes static Node DeleteLeafNodes(Node root) { // If the root is null, return null if (root == null) { return null; } // If the node itself is a leaf, // delete it if (root.children.Count == 0) { return null; } // Process children and remove // any leaf nodes root.children.RemoveAll( child => child != null && child.children.Count == 0); for (int i = 0; i < root.children.Count; i++) { root.children[i] = DeleteLeafNodes(root.children[i]); } return root; } // Recursive function for preorder traversal // of the N-ary tree static void preorderTraversal(Node root) { if (root == null) { return; } Console.Write(root.data + " "); foreach(var child in root.children) { preorderTraversal(child); } } static void Main(string[] args) { // Representation of given N-ary tree // 1 // / | \ // 2 3 4 // / \ // 5 6 Node root = new Node(1); root.children.Add(new Node(2)); root.children.Add(new Node(3)); root.children.Add(new Node(4)); root.children[0].children.Add(new Node(5)); root.children[2].children.Add(new Node(6)); root = DeleteLeafNodes(root); preorderTraversal(root); } } JavaScript // JavaScript Code to delete all leaf nodes // in an N-ary tree class Node { constructor(val) { this.data = val; this.children = []; } } // Recursive function to delete all leaf nodes function deleteLeafNodes(root) { // If the root is null, return null if (!root) { return null; } // If the node itself is a leaf, delete it if (root.children.length === 0) { return null; } // Process children and remove any leaf nodes root.children = root.children.filter(child => { if (child && child.children.length === 0) { return false; // Remove this child } // Recur for non-leaf children child = deleteLeafNodes(child); return child !== null; }); return root; } // Recursive function for preorder traversal // of the N-ary tree function preorderTraversal(root) { if (!root) { return; } console.log(root.data); for (const child of root.children) { preorderTraversal(child); } } // Representation of given N-ary tree // 1 // / | \ // 2 3 4 // / \ // 5 6 const root = new Node(1); root.children.push(new Node(2)); root.children.push(new Node(3)); root.children.push(new Node(4)); root.children[0].children.push(new Node(5)); root.children[2].children.push(new Node(6)); deleteLeafNodes(root); preorderTraversal(root); Output1 2 4 Time Complexity: O(n), where n is the number of nodes in the N-ary tree, as each node is visited once.Auxiliary Space: O(h), where h is the height of the tree, due to the recursion stack during the deletion and traversal processes. 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