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MODULE 4:
TREES

DEFINITION
A tree is a finite set of one or more nodes such that
• There is a specially designated node called root.
• The remaining nodes are partitioned into n >= 0 disjoint set T1…, Tn, where each of
these sets is a tree. T1,…,Tn are called the subtrees of the root.

Every node in the tree is the root of some subtree

TERMINOLOGY
➢ Node: The item of information plus the branches to other nodes
➢ Degree: The number of subtrees of a node
➢ Degree of a tree: The maximum of the degree of the nodes in the tree.
➢ Terminal nodes (or leaf): nodes that have degree zero or node with no successor
➢ Nonterminal nodes: nodes that don’t belong to terminal nodes.
➢ Parent and Children: Suppose N is a node in T with left successor S1 and right
successor S2, then N is called the Parent (or father) of S1 and S2. Here, S1 is called
left child (or Son) and S2 is called right child (or Son) of N.
➢ Siblings: Children of the same parent are said to be siblings.
➢ Edge: A line drawn from node N of a T to a successor is called an edge
➢ Path: A sequence of consecutive edges from node N to a node M is called a path.
➢ Ancestors of a node: All the nodes along the path from the root to that node.
➢ The level of a node: defined by letting the root be at level zero. If a node is at level l,
then it children are at level l+1.
➢ Height (or depth): The maximum level of any node in the tree

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Example

A is the root node

B is the parent of E and F
C and D are the sibling of B E and F are the children of B
K, L, F, G, M, I, J are external nodes, or leaves A, B, C, D, E,
H are internal nodes
The level of E is 3
The height (depth) of the tree is 4 The degree of node B is 2
The degree of the tree is 3
The ancestors of node M is A, D, H
The descendants of node D is H, I, J, M

Representation of Trees

There are several ways to represent a given tree such as:

Figure (A)
1. List Representation
2. Left Child- Right Sibling Representation
3. Representation as a Degree-Two tree

List Representation:

The tree can be represented as a List. The tree of figure (A) could be written as the list.
(A (B (E (K, L), F), C (G), D (H (M), I, J)))
➢ The information in the root node comes first.
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➢ The root node is followed by a list of the subtrees of that node.

Tree node is represented by a memory node that has fields for the data and pointers to the
tree node's children

Since the degree of each tree node may be different, so memory nodes with a varying
number of pointer fields are used.
For a tree of degree k, the node structure can be represented as below figure. Each
child field is used to point to a subtree.

Left Child-Right Sibling Representation

The below figure show the node structure used in the left child-right sibling
representation

To convert the tree of Figure (A) into this representation:

1. First note that every node has at most one leftmost child
2. At most one closest right sibling.

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Ex:
➢ In Figure (A), the leftmost child of A is B, and the leftmost child of Dis H.
➢ The closest right sibling of B is C, and the closest right sibling of H is I.
➢ Choose the nodes based on how the tree is drawn. The left child field of each
node points to its leftmost child (if any), and the right sibling field points to
its closest right sibling (if any).
Figure (D) shows the tree of Figure (A) redrawn using the left child-right sibling

representation.
Figure (D): Left child-right sibling representation of tree of figure (A)

Representation as a Degree-Two Tree

To obtain the degree-two tree representation of a tree, simply rotate the right-sibling
pointers in a left child-right sibling tree clockwise by 45 degrees. This gives us the degree-
two tree displayed in Figure (E).

Figure (E): degree-two representation

In the degree-two representation, a node has two children as the left and right children.

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BINARY TREES
Definition: A binary tree T is defined as a finite set of nodes such that,
• T is empty or
• T consists of a root and two disjoint binary trees called the left subtree and the right
subtree.

Figure: Binary Tree

Different kinds of Binary Tree

Skewed Tree
A skewed tree is a tree, skewed to the left or skews to the right.
or
It is a tree consisting of only left subtree or only right subtree.
➢ A tree with only left subtrees is called Left Skewed Binary Tree.
➢ A tree with only right subtrees is called Right Skewed Binary Tree.

Complete Binary Tree

A binary tree T is said to complete if all its levels, except possibly the last level, have
the maximum number node 2i, i ≥ 0 and if all the nodes at the last level appears as far
left as possible.

Figure (a): Skewed binary tree Figure (b): Complete binary tree

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Full Binary Tree

A full binary tree of depth ‘k’ is a binary tree of depth k having 2k – 1 node, k ≥ 1.

Figure: Full binary tree of level 4 with sequential node number

Extended Binary Trees or 2-trees

An extended binary tree is a transformation of any binary tree into a complete binary
tree. This transformation consists of replacing every null subtree of the original
tree with “special nodes.” The nodes from the original tree are then internal nodes,
while the special nodes are external nodes.
For instance, consider the following binary tree.

The following tree is its extended binary tree. The circles represent internal nodes, and
square represent external nodes.
Every internal node in the extended tree has exactly two children, and every external node
is a leaf. The result is a complete binary tree.

PROPERTIES OF BINARY TREES

Lemma 1: [Maximum number of nodes]:
(1) The maximum number of nodes on level i of a binary tree is 2 i-1, i ≥ 1.
(2) The maximum number of nodes in a binary tree of depth k is 2k -1, k ≥ 1.
Proof:
(1) The proof is by induction on i.
Induction Base: The root is the only node on level i = 1. Hence, the maximum number
of nodes on level i =1 is 2i-1 = 20 = 1.
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Induction Hypothesis: Let i be an arbitrary positive integer greater than 1. Assume that
the maximum number of nodes on level i -1is 2i-2
Induction Step: The maximum number of nodes on level i -1 is 2i-2 by the induction
hypothesis. Since each node in a binary tree has a maximum degree of 2, the maximum
number of nodes on level i is two times the maximum number of nodes on level i-1, or 2i-1
2. The maximum number of nodes in a binary tree of depth k is k k
∑ (maximum number of nodes on level i) = ∑ 2i-1
= 2k-1 i=0 i=0
Lemma 2: [Relation between number of leaf nodes and degree-2 nodes]:
For any nonempty binary tree, T, if n0 is the number of leaf nodes and n2 the number of
nodes of degree 2, then n0 = n2 + 1.
Proof: Let n1 be the number of nodes of degree one and n the total number of nodes.
Since all nodes in T are at most of degree two, we have
n = n0 + n1+ n2 (1)
Count the number of branches in a binary tree. If B is the number of
branches, then n =B + 1.
All branches stem from a node of degree one or two. Thus,
B =n 1+ 2n2.
Hence, we obtain
n = B + 1= n 1+ 2n2 + 1 (2)
Subtracting Eq. (2) from Eq. (1) and rearranging terms, we get
n0 = n2 +1

Consider the figure:

Here, For Figure (b) n2=4, n0= n2+1=

4+1=5 Therefore, the total number of
leaf node=5

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BINARY TREE REPRESENTATION

The storage representation of binary trees can be classified as
1. Array representation
2. Linked representation.
4.4.1 Array representation:
• A tree can be represented using an array, which is called sequential representation.
• The nodes are numbered from 1 to n, and one dimensional array can be used to store
the nodes.
• Position 0 of this array is left empty and the node numbered i is mapped to position i of
the array.

Below figure shows the array representation for both the trees of figure (a).

• For complete binary tree the array representation is ideal, as no space is wasted.
• For the skewed tree less than half the array is utilized.

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Linked representation:
The problems in array representation are:
• It is good for complete binary trees, but more memory is wasted for skewed and
many other binary trees.
• The insertion and deletion of nodes from the middle of a tree require the
movement of many nodes to reflect the change in level number of these nodes.

These problems can be easily overcome by linked

representation Each node has three fields,

• LeftChild - which contains the address of left subtree
• RightChild - which contains the address of right subtree.
• Data - which contains the actual information
C Code for node:
typedef struct node *treepointer; typedef struct {
int data;
treepointer leftChild, rightChild;
} node;

Figure: Node representation

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Linked representation of the binary tree

BINARY TREE TRAVERSALS

Visiting each node in a tree exactly once is called tree traversal
The different methods of traversing a binary tree are:
1. Preorder
2. Inorder
3. Postorder
4. Iterative Inorder Traversal
5. Level-Order traversal

Preorder:
Preorder is the procedure of visiting a node, traverse left and continue. When you
cannot continue, move right and begin again or move back until you can move right and
resume.
Recursion function:
The Preorder traversal of a binary tree can be recursively defined as
• Visit the root
• Traverse the left subtree in preorder.
• Traverse the right subtree in preorder

void preorder (treepointerptr)

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Inorder:
Inorder traversal calls for moving down the tree toward the left until you cannot go further.
Then visit the node, move one node to the right and continue. If no move can be done, then go
back one more node.

Let ptr is the pointer which contains the location of the node N currently being
scanned. L(N) denotes the leftchild of node N and R(N) is the right child of node N

Recursion function:
The Inorder traversal of a binary tree can be recursively defined as

• Traverse the left subtree in Inorder.

• Visit the root.
• Traverse the right subtree in Inorder.

void inorder(treepointer ptr)

{
if (ptr)
{
inorder(ptr→leftchild);
printf(“%d”,ptr→data);
inorder (ptr→rightchild);
}
}

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Postorder:
Postorder traversal calls for moving down the tree towards the left until you can go no
further. Then move to the right node and then visit the node and continue.
Recursion function:
The Postorder traversal of a binary tree can be recursively defined as
• Traverse the left subtree in postorder.
• Traverse the right subtree in postorder.
• Visit the root

Iterative inorder Traversal:

Iterative inorder traversal explicitly make use of stack function.
The left nodes are pushed into stack until a null node is reached, the node is then
removed from the stack and displayed, and the node’s right child is stacked until a null
node is reached. The traversal then continues with the left child. The traversal is complete
when the stack is empty.

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Level-Order traversal:
Visiting the nodes using the ordering suggested by the node numbering is called level
ordering traversing.
The nodes in a tree are numbered starting with the root on level 1 and so on.
Firstly, visit the root, then the root’s left child, followed by the root’s right child. Thus
continuing in this manner, visiting the nodes at each new level from the leftmost node to
the rightmost node.

Level order traversal: 1 2 3 4 5

Initially in the code for level order add the root to the queue. The function operates by
deleting the node at the front of the queue, printing the nodes data field and adding the nodes
left and right children to the queue.
Function for level order traversal of a binary tree:

ADDITIONAL BINARY TREE OPERATIONS

Copying a Binary tree

This operation will perform a copying of one binary tree to

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another. C function to copy a binary tree:

treepointer copy (treepointer original)

{if(original)
{ MALLOC (temp, sizeof(*temp));
temp→leftchild=copy(original→leftchild);
temp→rightchild=copy(original→rightchild
); temp→data=original→data;
return temp;
}
return NULL;
}

Testing Equality
This operation will determine the equivalence of two binary tree. Equivalence binary tree
have the same structure and the same information in the corresponding nodes.
C function for testing equality of a binary tree: int equal (treepointer first, treepointer
second)
{
return ((! first &&! second) || (first && second && (first→ data== second →data)
&& equal (first→ leftchild, second→ leftchild) && equal (first→ rightchild,
second →rightchild))
}
This function will return TRUE if two trees are equivalent and FALSE if they are not.
The Satisfiability problem
• Consider the formula that is constructed by set of variables: x1, x2, …, xn and operators
(and), (or), ¬ (not).
• The variables can hold only of two possible values, true or false.
• The expression can form using these variables and operators is defined by
the following rules.
• A variable is an expression
• If x and y are expressions, then ¬x, xy, xy are expressions
• Parentheses can be used to alter the normal order of evaluation (¬ >  > )

Example: x1  (x2  ¬ x3) If x1 and x3 are false and x2 istrue

= false  (true  ¬false)
= false  true
= true

The satisfiability problem for formulas of the propositional calculus asks if there is

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an assignment of values to the variable that causes the value of the expression to be true.

Let’s assume the formula in a binary tree

(x1  ¬x2)  (¬ x1  x3)  ¬x3

The in order traversal of this tree is

x1  ¬x2  ¬ x1  x3  ¬x3
The algorithm to determine satisfiability is to let (x1, x2, x3) takes on all the possible
combination of true and false values to check the formula for each combination.
For n value of an expression, there are 2n possible combinations of true and false
For example n=3, the eight combinations are (t, t, t), (t, t, f), (t, f, t), (t,f,f), (f,t,t), (f,t,f),
(f,f,t), (f,f,f).
The algorithm will take O (g 2n), where g is the time to substitute values for x1, x2,… xn
and evaluate the expression.

Node structure:
For the purpose of evaluation algorithm, assume each node has four fields:

Define this node structure in C as:

Satisfiability function: The first version of Satisfiability algorithm

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THREADED BINARY TREE

The limitations of binary tree are:
• In binary tree, there are n+1 null links out of 2n total links.
• Traversing a tree with binary tree is time consuming. These limitations can be
overcome by threaded binary tree.

In the linked representation of any binary tree, there are more null links than actual pointers.
These null links are replaced by the pointers, called threads, which points to other nodes in
the tree.
To construct the threads, use the following rules:
1. Assume that ptr represents a node. If ptr →left Child is null, then replace the null
link with a pointer to the inorder predecessor of ptr.
2. If ptr →right Child is null, replace the null link with a pointer to the inorder
successor of ptr.
Ex: Consider the binary tree as shown in below figure:

Figure A: Binary Tree

There should be no loose threads in threaded binary tree. But in Figure B two threads have
been left dangling: one in the left child of H, the other in the right child of G.

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Figure B: Threaded tree corresponding to Figure A

In above figure the new threads are drawn in broken lines. This tree has 9 nodes and 10 0 -
links which has been replaced by threads.
When trees are represented in memory, it should be able to distinguish between
threads and pointers. This can be done by adding two additional fields to node structure,
ie., left Thread and right Thread
• If ptr→ leftThread = TRUE, then ptr→ leftChild contains a thread,
otherwise it contains a pointer to the left child.
• If ptr→ rightThread = TRUE, then ptr→ rightChild contains a thread,
otherwise it contains a pointer to the right child.
Node Structure:
The node structure is given in C declaration
typedef struct threadTree
*threadPointer typedef struct {
short int leftThread; threadPointer
leftChild; char data;
threadPointer rightChild; short int
rightThread;
} threadTree;

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The complete memory representation for the tree of figure is shown in Figure C

The variable root points to the header node of the tree, while root →leftChild points to
the start of the first node of the actual tree. This is true for all threaded trees. Here the
problem of the loose threads is handled by pointing to the head node called root.

Inorder Traversal of a Threaded Binary Tree

• By using the threads, an inorder traversal can be performed without making use of
a stack.
• For any node, ptr, in a threaded binary tree, if ptr→rightThread =TRUE, the
inorder successor of ptr is ptr →rightChild by definition of the threads. Otherwise we
obtain the inorder successor of ptr by following a path of left-child links from the
right-child of ptr until we reach a node with leftThread = TRUE.
• The function insucc () finds the inorder successor of any node in a threaded
tree without using a stack.

threadedpointer insucc(threadedPointer tree)

{ /* find the inorder successor of tree in a threaded binary
tree */ threadedpointer temp;
temp = tree→rightChild;
if (!tree→rightThread)
while (!temp→leftThread)
temp = temp→leftChild;
return temp;
Program: Finding inorder successor of a node

To perform inorder traversal make repeated calls to insucc ( )

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function void inorder (threadedpointer tree)

{
Threadedpointer temp = tree;
for(; ;){
temp = insucc(temp);
if (temp == tree)

break;
printf(“%3c”, temp→data);
}
}
Program: Inorder traversal of a threaded binary tree
Inserting a Node into a Threaded Binary Tree
In this case, the insertion of r as the right child of a node s is studied.
The cases for insertion are:
• If s has an empty right subtree, then the insertion is simple and diagrammed in Figure
• If the right subtree of s is not empty, then this right subtree is made the right subtree
of r after insertion. When this is done, r becomes the inorder predecessor of a node that
has a leftThread == true field, and consequently there is a thread which has to be updated
to point to r. The node containing this thread was previously the inorder successor of s.

void insertRight(threadedPointer Sf threadedPointer r)

{ /* insert r as the right child of s */ threadedpointer

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temp; r→rightChild = parent→rightChild;

r→rightThread = parent→rightThread;
r→leftChild = parent;
r→leftThread = TRUE;
s→rightChild = child;
s→rightThread = FALSE;
if (!r→rightThread)
{
temp = insucc(r);
temp→leftChild = r;
}
}

Binary Search Tree (BST)

A Binary Search Tree (BST) is a tree in which all the nodes follow the below-mentioned
properties –
• The left sub-tree of a node has a key less than or equal to its parent node's key.
• The right sub-tree of a node has a key greater than to its parent node's key.
Thus, BST divides all its sub-trees into two segments; the left sub-tree and the right sub-
tree and can be defined as
left_subtree (keys) ≤ node (key) ≤ right_subtree (keys)
Representation
BST is a collection of nodes arranged in a way where they maintain BST properties.
Each node has a key and an associated value. While searching, the desired key is
compared to the keys in BST and if found, the associated value is retrieved. Following is
a pictorial representation of BST –

We observe that the root node key (27) has all less-valued keys on the left sub-tree and
the higher valued keys on the right sub-tree
Basic Operations
➢ Following are the basic operations of a tree –
➢ Search − Searches an element in a tree.

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➢ Insert − Inserts an element in a tree.

➢ Pre-order Traversal − Traverses a tree in a pre-order manner.
➢ In-order Traversal − Traverses a tree in an in-order manner.
➢ Post-order Traversal − Traverses a tree in a post-order manner.
Node
Define a node having some data, references to its left and right child nodes.

Search Operation
Whenever an element is to be searched, start searching from the root node. Then if the data is
less than the key value, search for the element in the left subtree. Otherwise, search for the
element in the right subtree. Follow the same algorithm for each node.
Algorithm

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Insert Operation
Whenever an element is to be inserted, first locate its proper location. Start searching from the
root node, then if the data is less than the key value, search for the empty location in the left
subtree and insert the data. Otherwise, search for the empty location in the right subtree and
insert the data.
Algorithm

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