Binary Trees,
Binary Search Trees
Binary Search Trees / Slide 2
Trees
Linear access time of linked lists is prohibitive
Does there exist any simple data structure for
which the running time of most operations (search,
insert, delete) is O(log N)?
Binary Search Trees / Slide 3
Trees
A tree is a collection of nodes
The collection can be empty
(recursive definition) If not empty, a tree consists of
a distinguished node r (the root), and zero or more
nonempty subtrees T1, T2, ...., Tk, each of whose
roots are connected by a directed edge from r
Binary Search Trees / Slide 4
Some Terminologies
Child and parent
Every node except the root has one parent
A node can have an arbitrary number of children
Leaves
Nodes with no children
Sibling
nodes with same parent
Binary Search Trees / Slide 5
Some Terminologies
Path
Length
number of edges on the path
Depth of a node
length of the unique path from the root to that node
The depth of a tree is equal to the depth of the deepest leaf
Height of a node
length of the longest path from that node to a leaf
all leaves are at height 0
The height of a tree is equal to the height of the root
Ancestor and descendant
Proper ancestor and proper descendant
Binary Search Trees / Slide 6
Example: UNIX Directory
Binary Search Trees / Slide 7
Binary Trees
A tree in which no node can have more than two children
The depth of an “average” binary tree is considerably smaller
than N, eventhough in the worst case, the depth can be as large
as N – 1.
Binary Search Trees / Slide 8
Example: Expression Trees
Leaves are operands (constants or variables)
The other nodes (internal nodes) contain operators
Will not be a binary tree if some operators are not binary
Binary Search Trees / Slide 9
Tree traversal
Used to print out the data in a tree in a certain
order
Pre-order traversal
Print the data at the root
Recursively print out all data in the left subtree
Recursively print out all data in the right subtree
Binary Search Trees / Slide 10
Preorder, Postorder and Inorder
Preorder traversal
node, left, right
prefix expression
++a*bc*+*defg
Binary Search Trees / Slide 11
Preorder, Postorder and Inorder
Postorder traversal
left, right, node
postfix expression
abc*+de*f+g*+
Inorder traversal
left, node, right.
infix expression
a+b*c+d*e+f*g
Binary Search Trees / Slide 12
Preorder
Binary Search Trees / Slide 13
Postorder
Binary Search Trees / Slide 14
Preorder, Postorder and Inorder
Binary Search Trees / Slide 15
Binary Trees
Possible operations on the Binary Tree ADT
parent
left_child, right_child
sibling
root, etc
Implementation
Because a binary tree has at most two children, we can keep
direct pointers to them
Binary Search Trees / Slide 16
compare: Implementation of a general tree
Binary Search Trees / Slide 17
Binary Search Trees
Stores keys in the nodes in a way so that searching,
insertion and deletion can be done efficiently.
Binary search tree property
For every node X, all the keys in its left subtree are smaller
than the key value in X, and all the keys in its right subtree
are larger than the key value in X
Binary Search Trees / Slide 18
Binary Search Trees
A binary search tree Not a binary search tree
Binary Search Trees / Slide 19
Binary search trees
Two binary search trees representing
the same set:
Average depth of a node is O(log N);
maximum depth of a node is O(N)
Binary Search Trees / Slide 20
Implementation
Binary Search Trees / Slide 21
Searching BST
If we are searching for 15, then we are done.
If we are searching for a key < 15, then we
should search in the left subtree.
If we are searching for a key > 15, then we
should search in the right subtree.
Binary Search Trees / Slide 22
Binary Search Trees / Slide 23
Searching (Find)
Find X: return a pointer to the node that has key X, or
NULL if there is no such node
Time complexity
O(height of the tree)
Binary Search Trees / Slide 24
Inorder traversal of BST
Print out all the keys in sorted order
Inorder: 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 13, 15, 17, 18, 20
Binary Search Trees / Slide 25
findMin/ findMax
Return the node containing the smallest element in
the tree
Start at the root and go left as long as there is a left
child. The stopping point is the smallest element
Similarly for findMax
Time complexity = O(height of the tree)
Binary Search Trees / Slide 26
insert
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
Time complexity = O(height of the tree)
Binary Search Trees / Slide 27
delete
When we delete a node, we need to consider
how we take care of the children of the
deleted node.
This has to be done such that the property of the
search tree is maintained.
Binary Search Trees / Slide 28
delete
Three cases:
(1) the node is a leaf
Delete it immediately
(2) the node has one child
Adjust a pointer from the parent to bypass that node
Binary Search Trees / Slide 29
delete
(3) the node has 2 children
replace the key of that node with the minimum element at the
right subtree
delete the minimum element
Has either no child or only right child because if it has a left
child, that left child would be smaller and would have been
chosen. So invoke case 1 or 2.
Time complexity = O(height of the tree)
