6.
Trees
Written by Irina Galata
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The tree is a data structure of profound importance. It’s used to tackle many recurring challenges in software development, such as:
- Representing hierarchical relationships.
- Managing sorted data.
- Facilitating fast lookup operations.
There are many types of trees, and they come in various shapes and sizes. In this chapter, you’ll learn the basics of using and implementing a tree.
Terminology
There are many terms associated with trees, so it makes sense to get familiar with a few of them before starting.
Node
Like the linked list, trees are made up of nodes.
Parent and child
Trees are viewed starting from the top and branching toward the bottom — just like a real tree, only upside-down.
Root
The topmost node in the tree is called the root of the tree. It’s the only node that has no parent:
Leaf
A node that has no children is called a leaf:
Implementation
To get started, open the starter project for this chapter.
class TreeNode<T>(val value: T) {
private val children: MutableList<TreeNode<T>> = mutableListOf()
}
fun add(child: TreeNode<T>) = children.add(child)
fun main() {
val hot = TreeNode("Hot")
val cold = TreeNode("Cold")
val beverages = TreeNode("Beverages").run {
add(hot)
add(cold)
}
}
Traversal algorithms
Iterating through linear collections such as arrays or lists is straightforward. Linear collections have a clear start and end:
typealias Visitor<T> = (TreeNode<T>) -> Unit
Depth-first traversal
Depth-first traversal starts at the root node and explores the tree as far as possible along each branch before reaching a leaf and then backtracking.
fun forEachDepthFirst(visit: Visitor<T>) {
visit(this)
children.forEach {
it.forEachDepthFirst(visit)
}
}
fun makeBeverageTree(): TreeNode<String> {
val tree = TreeNode("Beverages")
val hot = TreeNode("hot")
val cold = TreeNode("cold")
val tea = TreeNode("tea")
val coffee = TreeNode("coffee")
val chocolate = TreeNode("cocoa")
val blackTea = TreeNode("black")
val greenTea = TreeNode("green")
val chaiTea = TreeNode("chai")
val soda = TreeNode("soda")
val milk = TreeNode("milk")
val gingerAle = TreeNode("ginger ale")
val bitterLemon = TreeNode("bitter lemon")
tree.add(hot)
tree.add(cold)
hot.add(tea)
hot.add(coffee)
hot.add(chocolate)
cold.add(soda)
cold.add(milk)
tea.add(blackTea)
tea.add(greenTea)
tea.add(chaiTea)
soda.add(gingerAle)
soda.add(bitterLemon)
return tree
}
fun main() {
val tree = makeBeverageTree()
tree.forEachDepthFirst { println(it.value) }
}
Beverages
hot
tea
black
green
chai
coffee
cocoa
cold
soda
ginger ale
bitter lemon
milk
Level-order traversal
Level-order traversal is a technique that visits each node of the tree based on the depth of the nodes. Starting at the root, every node on a level is visited before going to a lower level.
fun forEachLevelOrder(visit: Visitor<T>) {
visit(this)
val queue = Queue<TreeNode<T>>()
children.forEach { queue.enqueue(it) }
var node = queue.dequeue()
while (node != null) {
visit(node)
node.children.forEach { queue.enqueue(it) }
node = queue.dequeue()
}
}
fun main() {
val tree = makeBeverageTree()
tree.forEachLevelOrder { println(it.value) }
}
beverages
hot
cold
tea
coffee
cocoa
soda
milk
black
green
chai
ginger ale
bitter lemon
Search
You already have a method that iterates through the nodes, so building a search algorithm won’t take long.
fun search(value: T): TreeNode<T>? {
var result: TreeNode<T>? = null
forEachLevelOrder {
if (it.value == value) {
result = it
}
}
return result
}
fun main() {
val tree = makeBeverageTree()
tree.search("ginger ale")?.let {
println("Found node: ${it.value}")
}
tree.search("WKD Blue")?.let {
println(it.value)
} ?: println("Couldn't find WKD Blue")
}
Found node: ginger ale
Couldn't find WKD Blue
Challenges
Challenge 1: Tree challenge
Print the values in a tree in an order based on their level. Nodes belonging to the same level should be printed on the same line. For example, consider the following tree:
15
1 17 20
1 5 0 2 5 7
Solution 1
A straightforward way to print the nodes in level-order is to leverage the level-order traversal using a Queue data structure. The tricky bit is determining when a new line should occur.
fun printEachLevel() {
// 1
val queue = ArrayListQueue<TreeNode<T>>()
var nodesLeftInCurrentLevel = 0
queue.enqueue(this)
// 2
while (queue.isEmpty.not()) {
// 3
nodesLeftInCurrentLevel = queue.count
// 4
while (nodesLeftInCurrentLevel > 0) {
val node = queue.dequeue()
node?.let {
print("${node.value} ")
node.children.forEach { queue.enqueue(it) }
nodesLeftInCurrentLevel--
} ?: break
}
// 5
println()
}
}
Key points
- Trees share some similarities to linked lists. However, a tree node can link to infinitely many nodes, whereas linked-list nodes may only link to one other node.
- Get comfortable with the tree terminology such as a parent, child, leaf, and root. Many of these terms are common and are used to help explain other tree structures.
- Traversals, such as depth-first and level-order traversals, aren’t specific to only the general type of tree. They work on other types of trees as well, although their implementation is slightly different based on how the tree is structured.
- Trees are a fundamental data structure with different implementations. Some of these will be part of the next chapters.