The tree data structure

Trees
COL 106

Acknowledgement :Many slides are courtesy

Douglas Harder, UWaterloo
1
 The tree data structure
2
Trees
A rooted tree data structure stores information in nodes
– Similar to linked lists:
• There is a first node, or root
• Each node has variable number of references to successors
(children)
• Each node, other than the root, has exactly one node as its
predecessor (or parent)
 The tree data structure
3

Tree Terminology (2)

• We also use words like ancestor and descendent

3
 The tree data structure
4

What are trees suitable for ?

4
 The tree data structure

To store organization of departments

5

5
 The tree data structure
6

To capture the evolution of languages

6
 The tree data structure
7

Markup elements in a webpage

7
 The tree data structure

To store phylogenetic data

8

This will be our running example. Will illustrate tree

concepts using actual phylogenetic data. 8
 The tree data structure
9

Terminology

All nodes will have zero or more child nodes or children

– I has three children: J, K and L

For all nodes other than the root node, there is one
parent node
– H is the parent of I
 The tree data structure
10

Terminology

The degree of a node is defined as the number of its

children: deg(I) = 3

Nodes with the same parent are siblings

– J, K, and L are siblings
 The tree data structure
11

Terminology
Phylogenetic trees have nodes with degree 2 or 0:
 The tree data structure
12

Terminology

Nodes with degree zero are also called leaf nodes

All other nodes are said to be internal nodes, that is, they
are internal to the tree
 The tree data structure
13

Terminology
Leaf nodes:
 The tree data structure
14

Terminology
Internal nodes:
 The tree data structure
15

Terminology

These trees are equal if the order of the children is

ignored (Unordered trees )

They are different if order is relevant (ordered

trees)
– We will usually examine ordered trees (linear orders)
– In a hierarchical ordering, order is not relevant
 The tree data structure
16

Terminology

The shape of a rooted tree gives a natural

flow from the root node, or just root
 The tree data structure
17

Terminology

A path is a sequence of nodes

(a0, a1, ..., an)
where ak + 1 is a child of ak is

The length of this path is n

E.g., the path (B, E, G)

has length 2
 The tree data structure
18

Terminology
Paths of length 10 (11 nodes) and 4 (5 nodes)

Start of these paths

End of these paths

 The tree data structure
19

Terminology
For each node in a tree, there exists a unique path from
the root node to that node

The length of this path is the depth of the node, e.g.,

– E has depth 2
– L has depth 3
 The tree data structure
20

Terminology
Nodes of depth up to 17
0

14

17
 The tree data structure
21

Tree Terminology
• A tree is a collection of elements (nodes)
• Each node may have 0 or more successors
• (Unlike a list, which has 0 or 1 successor)
• Each node has exactly one predecessor
• Except the starting / top node, called the root
• Links from node to its successors are called branches
• Successors of a node are called its children
• Predecessor of a node is called its parent
• Nodes with same parent are siblings
• Nodes with no children are called leaves

21
 The tree data structure
22

Tree Terminology
• Subtree of a node:
A tree whose root is a child of that node
• Level of a node:
A measure of its distance from the root:
Level of the root = 1
Level of other nodes = 1 + level of parent

Chapter 8: Trees 22
 The tree data structure
23

Level 1
(root)
Level 2

Level 2
Level 2

Chapter 8: Trees 23
 The tree data structure
24

Terminology

The height of a tree is defined as the

maximum depth of any node within the
tree

The height of a tree with one node is 0

– Just the root node

For convenience, we define the height of

the empty tree to be –1
 The tree data structure
25

Terminology
The height of this tree is 17

17
 The tree data structure
26

Terminology

If a path exists from node a to node b:

– a is an ancestor of b
– b is a descendent of a

Thus, a node is both an ancestor and a

descendant of itself
– We can add the adjective strict to exclude
equality: a is a strict descendent of b if a is a
descendant of b but a ≠ b
 The tree data structure
27

Terminology

The descendants of node B are B, C, D, E, F, and G:

The ancestors of node I are I, H, and A:

 The tree data structure
28

Terminology
All descendants (including itself) of the indicated node
 The tree data structure
29

Terminology
All ancestors (including itself) of the indicated node
 The tree data structure
30

Terminology

Another approach to a tree is to define the tree

recursively:
– A degree-0 node is a tree
– A node with degree n is a tree if it has n children and all
of its children are disjoint trees (i.e., with no intersecting
nodes)

Given any node a within a tree

with root r, the collection of a and
all of its descendants is said to
be a subtree of the tree with
root a
 The tree data structure
31

Binary Tree
• A binary tree is a tree with the • Applications:
following properties: • arithmetic expressions
• Each internal node has two children • decision processes
• The children of a node are an ordered • searching
pair
• We call the children of an internal A
node left child and right child
• Alternative recursive definition: a
binary tree is either B C
• a tree consisting of a single node, or
• a tree whose root has an ordered pair
of children, each of which is a disjoint
D E F G
binary tree

H I

31
 The tree data structure
32

Arithmetic Expression Tree

• Binary tree associated with an arithmetic expression
• internal nodes: operators
• leaves: operands
• Example: arithmetic expression tree for the expression
(2 * (a - 1) + (3 * b))

* *

2 - 3 b

a 1

32
 The tree data structure
33

Fullness and Completeness

• (In computer science) trees grow from the top down
• New values inserted in new leaf nodes
• A binary tree is full if all leaves are at the same level
• In a full tree, every node has 0 or 2 non-null children

Chapter 8: Trees 33
 The tree data structure
34

General (Non-Binary) Trees

• Nodes can have any number of children

Chapter 8: Trees 34
 The tree data structure
35

Example: XHTML

Consider the following XHTML document

<html>
<head>
<title>Hello World!</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>This is a <u>Heading</u></h1>

<p>This is a paragraph with some

<u>underlined</u> text.</p>
</body>
</html>
 The tree data structure
36

Example: XHTML

The nested tags define a tree rooted at the HTML tag

<html>
<head>
<title>Hello World!</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>This is a <u>Heading</u></h1>

<p>This is a paragraph with some

<u>underlined</u> text.</p>
</body>
</html>
 The tree data structure
37

Tree ADT
• We use positions to abstract • Query methods:
nodes • boolean isInternal(p)
• Generic methods: • boolean isLeaf (p)
• integer size() • boolean isRoot(p)
• boolean isEmpty() • Update methods:
• objectIterator elements() • swapElements(p, q)
• Accessor methods: • object replaceElement(p, o)
• Additional update methods may
• node root()
be defined by data structures
• node parent(p) implementing the Tree ADT
• nodeIterator

37
 The tree data structure
38

A Linked Structure for General Trees

• A node is represented by
an object storing
• Element 0
• Parent node
• Sequence of children B
nodes
0 0

A D F

A D F
0 0
C E C E
38
 The tree data structure
39

A Linked Structure for General Trees

Class Node {
Object element;
Node parent;
List<Node> Children; // or array of Nodes

}
 The tree data structure
40

Tree using Array

• Each node contains a field for data and an array
of pointers to the children for that node
– Missing child will have null pointer
• Tree is represented by pointer to root
• Allows access to ith child in O(1) time
• Very wasteful in space when only few nodes in
tree have many children (most pointers are null)

40
 The tree data structure
41

Tree Traversals
• A traversal visits the nodes of a tree in a
systematic manner

• We will see three types of traversals

• Pre-order
• Post-order
•

41
 The tree data structure
42

Flavors of (Depth First) Traversal

• In a preorder traversal, a node is visited before
its descendants
• In a postorder traversal, a node is visited after
its descendants
• In an inorder traversal a node is visited after
its left subtree and before its right subtree

42
 The tree data structure

Preorder Traversal
43

1 Process the root

2 Process the nodes in the all subtrees in their order

Algorithm preOrder(v)
visit(v)
for each child w of v
preOrder(w)

Lecture 5: Trees
 The tree data structure
44

Visualizing Tree Traversals (2)

Preorder:
a, b, d, g, e,
h, c, f, i, j

Chapter 8: Trees 44
 The tree data structure
45

Postorder traversal
1. Process the nodes in all subtrees in their order
2. Process the root

Algorithm postOrder(v)
for each child w of v
postOrder(w)
visit(v)

45
 The tree data structure
46

Visualizing Tree Traversals (4)

Postorder:
g, d, h, e, b,
i, j, f, c, a

Chapter 8: Trees 46
 The tree data structure
47

Inorder traversal
1. Process the nodes in the left subtree
2. Process the root
3. Process the nodes in the right subtree

Algorithm InOrder(v)
InOrder(v->left)
visit(v)
InOrder(v->right)

For simplicity, we consider tree having at most 2

children, though it can be generalized.
47
 The tree data structure
48

Visualizing Tree Traversals (3)

Inorder:
d, g, b, h, e,
a, i, f, j, c

Chapter 8: Trees 48
 Computing Height of Tree
Can be computed using the following idea:
1. The height of a leaf node is 0
2. The height of a node other than the leaf is the
maximum of the height of the left subtree and the
height of the right subtree plus 1.
Height(v) = max[height(vàleft) + height(vàright)] + 1

Details left as exercise.

49
 More examples
Which traversal will use if:
1. Want to evaluate the depth of every node ?
2. Given a tree representing arithmetic expression,
print it in postfix notation ?
3. Given the directory structure of files, figure out the
total memory usage ?
4. Given the directory structure of files, print the
complete file names for each file ?

50
 The tree data structure
51

Arithmetic Expression Tree

• Binary tree associated with an arithmetic expression
• internal nodes: operators
• leaves: operands
• Example: arithmetic expression tree for the expression
(2 * (a - 1) + (3 * b))

* *

2 - 3 b

a 1

51
 The tree data structure

Complete Binary Tree

52

• A complete binary tree is a binary tree which is completely

filled with the possible exception of the bottom level, which is
filled left to right.

52
How many leaves L does a complete binary tree of
height h have?

The number of leaves at depth d = 2d

If the height of the tree is h it has 2h

leaves.

L = 2h.
53
What is the height h of a complete binary tree with
L leaves?
leaves = 1 height = 0

leaves = 2 height = 1

leaves = 4 height = 2

leaves = L height = Log2L

Since L = 2h
log2L = log22h
h = log2L

Data Structures and Algorithms 54

The number of internal nodes of a complete binary
tree of height h is ?

Internal nodes = 0 height = 0

Internal nodes = 1 height = 1

Internal nodes = 1 + 2 height = 2

Internal nodes = 1 + 2 + 4 height = 3

1 + 2 + 22 + . . . + 2 h-1 = 2h -1 Geometric series

Thus, a complete binary tree of height = h has 2h-1 internal

nodes.

55
 The number of nodes n of a complete
binary tree of height h is ?

nodes = 1 height = 0

nodes = 3 height = 1

nodes = 7 height = 2

nodes = 2h+1- 1 height = h

Since L = 2h
and since the number of internal nodes = 2h-1 the
total number of nodes n = 2h+ 2h-1 = 2(2h) – 1 = 2h+1- 1.

56
If the number of nodes is n then what is the
height?

nodes = 1 height = 0

nodes = 3 height = 1

nodes = 7 height = 2

nodes = n height = Log2(n+1) - 1

Since n = 2h+1-1
n + 1 = 2h+1
Log2(n+1) = Log2 2h+1
Log2(n+1) = h+1
h = Log2(n+1) - 1
57
What if the tree is not complete (but proper) ?

Height could lie in the range [log n, n/2]

Number of leaves = Number of internal nodes + 1

58
 BinaryTree ADT

• The BinaryTree ADT • Update methods

extends the Tree may be defined by
ADT, i.e., it inherits data structures
all the methods of implementing the
the Tree ADT BinaryTree ADT
• Additional
methods:
• node leftChild(p)
• node rightChild(p)
• node sibling(p) 59