Notes on Trees:

1. Introduction:

A tree is a widely used data structure in computer science and mathematics.

It is a hierarchical structure that consists of nodes connected by edges.

The topmost node is called the root, and it has no incoming edges. All other nodes have one
incoming edge, except for leaf nodes with no outgoing edges.

2. Terminology:

Node: Each element in the tree is a node, which may contain some data.

Edge: The connection between two nodes.

Root: The topmost node of the tree, which serves as the starting point for traversals.

Parent: A node that has outgoing edges to one or more child nodes.

Child: A node that has a parent node.

Siblings: Nodes that share the same parent.

Leaf: A node with no child nodes (i.e., nodes at the end of the branches).

Subtree: A tree formed by a node and its descendants.

Depth: The depth of a node is the number of edges from the root to that node.

Height: The height of a node is the number of edges on the longest path from the node to a leaf.

Binary Tree: A tree in which each node has at most two children, commonly referred to as the left
child and right child.

Binary Search Tree (BST): A binary tree where the left child is less than the parent, and the right child
is greater.

3. Types of Trees:

Binary Trees: Each node has at most two children, leading to a natural binary structure.

Binary Search Trees (BST): A specific binary tree with sorted properties, useful for efficient searching,
insertion, and deletion.

Balanced Trees: Trees where the difference between the heights of the left and right subtrees of any
node is limited, reducing the height and improving performance.

AVL Trees: A type of self-balancing binary search tree where the balance factor of each node is
limited to maintain the balance property.
Red-Black Trees: Another type of self-balancing binary search tree with constraints on node colors to
ensure balancing during insertion and deletion.

B-Trees: A balanced tree data structure, commonly used in databases and file systems, designed to
minimize disk reads and writes.

Trie: A tree-like data structure used to efficiently store a dynamic set of strings, typically used for
dictionary and autocomplete applications.

4. Tree Traversal:

In-order traversal: Visit left subtree, current node, then right subtree.

Pre-order traversal: Visit current node, left subtree, then right subtree.

Post-order traversal: Visit left subtree, right subtree, then the current node.

Level-order traversal (BFS): Visit nodes level by level, from left to right, starting from the root.

5. Applications:

Trees are commonly used for representing hierarchical data like file systems, organization structures,
and XML/HTML documents.

In computer science, they are used in various algorithms, such as searching, sorting, and graph
traversal.

Binary search trees are helpful for efficient searching, insertion, and deletion operations.

Tree structures are fundamental in artificial intelligence, decision-making processes, and game
development (e.g., decision trees).

Tries are utilized for efficient string search and storage.

6. Complexity:

The time complexity of basic tree operations depends on the height of the tree, ranging from O(log
n) in balanced trees to O(n) in skewed trees.

Space complexity for tree structures is usually O(n) to store n elements.

7. Common Tree Problems:

Finding the height or depth of a tree.

Searching for an element in a binary search tree.

Inserting and deleting nodes in a tree.

Balancing an unbalanced binary search tree.

8. Important Algorithms:

Binary Search Tree algorithms: Insertion, Deletion, Search, In-order traversal.

Tree Traversal algorithms: In-order, Pre-order, Post-order, Level-order.

Balanced Tree algorithms: AVL Tree rotations, Red-Black Tree balancing.

9. Tree Implementations:

Trees can be implemented using various data structures, such as arrays, linked lists, and dynamic
memory allocation.

10. Considerations:

Careful consideration is necessary when choosing the appropriate tree structure based on the
application's requirements.

The balance of the tree should be maintained to ensure efficient operations and prevent
performance degradation.

(Note: The above notes cover 1