Tree Data Structures

• There are a number of applications where

linear data structures are not appropriate.
• Consider a genealogy tree of a family.
Mohammad Aslam Khan

Sohail Aslam Javed Aslam Yasmeen Aslam

Haaris Saad Qasim Asim Fahd Ahmad Sara Omer

Tree Data Structure
• A linear linked list will not be able to
capture the tree-like relationship with
ease.
• Shortly, we will see that for applications
that require searching, linear data
structures are not suitable.
• We will focus our attention on binary trees.
Binary Tree
• A binary tree is a finite set of elements that is
either empty or is partitioned into three disjoint
subsets.
• The first subset contains a single element called
the root of the tree.
• The other two subsets are themselves binary
trees called the left and right subtrees.
• Each element of a binary tree is called a node of
the tree.
Binary Tree
• Binary tree with 9 nodes.
A

B C

D E F

G H I
Binary Tree
root

B C

D E F

G H I

Left subtree Right subtree

Binary Tree
• Recursive definition
A
root

B C

D E F

Left subtree G H I

Right subtree
Binary Tree
• Recursive definition
A

B C
root

D E F

G H I

Left subtree
Binary Tree
• Recursive definition
A

B C

D E F

root
G H I
Binary Tree
• Recursive definition
A
root

B C

D E F

G H I

Right subtree
Binary Tree
• Recursive definition
A

B C
root

D E F

G H I

Left subtree Right subtree

Not a Tree
• Structures that are not trees.
A

B C

D E F

G H I
Not a Tree
• Structures that are not trees.
A

B C

D E F

G H I
Not a Tree
• Structures that are not trees.
A

B C

D E F

G H I
Binary Tree: Terminology

parent
A

Left descendant B C Right descendant

D E F

G H I

Leaf nodes Leaf nodes

Binary Tree
• If every non-leaf node in a binary tree has non-empty left and right subtrees, the
tree is termed a strictly binary tree.

B C

D E J F

G K H I
Level of a Binary Tree Node
• The level of a node in a binary tree is
defined as follows:
 Root has level 0,
 Level of any other node is one more than the
level its parent (father).
• The depth of a binary tree is the maximum
level of any leaf in the tree.
Level of a Binary Tree Node

A 0 Level 0

B 1 C 1 Level 1

D 2 E 2 F 2 Level 2

G 3 H 3 I 3 Level 3
Complete Binary Tree
• A complete binary tree of depth d is the strictly
binary all of whose leaves are at level d.
0
A

B 1 C 1

D 2 E 2 F 2 G 2

H 3 I J 3 K L 3 M 3 N 3 O 3
Complete Binary Tree

A Level 0: 20 nodes

B C Level 1: 21 nodes

D E F G Level 2: 22 nodes

H I J K L M N O Level 3: 23 nodes
Complete Binary Tree
• At level k, there are 2k nodes.
• Total number of nodes in the tree of depth
d:
d
20+ 21+ 22 + ………. + 2d =  2j = 2d+1 – 1
j=0

• In a complete binary tree, there are 2d leaf

nodes and (2d - 1) non-leaf (inner) nodes.
Complete Binary Tree
• If the tree is built out of ‘n’ nodes then

n = 2d+1 – 1
or log2(n+1) = d+1
or d = log2(n+1) – 1
• I.e., the depth of the complete binary tree built
using ‘n’ nodes will be log2(n+1) – 1.
• For example, for n=1,000,000, log2(1000001) is
less than 20; the tree would be 20 levels deep.
• The significance of this shallowness will become
evident later.
Operations on Binary Tree
• There are a number of operations that can
be defined for a binary tree.
• If p is pointing to a node in an existing tree
then
 left(p) returns pointer to the left subtree
 right(p) returns pointer to right subtree
 parent(p) returns the father of p
 brother(p) returns brother of p.
 info(p) returns content of the node.