Related
I'm not quite sure how to pick a root for a binary search tree (I'm wanting to do without any code):
5, 9, 2, 1, 4, 8 ,3, 7, 6
How do I pick a root?
The steps are confusing me for this algorithm.
You can initialize an empty BST (binary search tree), then iterate the list and insert each item.
You don't need to pick a root, just build the tree. But maybe you want balanced the tree, you can insert as first element the middle value of the list, but the right answer is to use a balanced binary search tree (AVL tree).
Median number will be a better choice, because you want to have less depth.
Here is one example, the root is find the median the next one is also find the median
5
3 8
2 4 7 9
1 6
5 is get by (1+9)/2. 3 get from ceiling(1+4)/2 (you can also choose the floor of the median as the role of choosing median root)
BST with the same values can have many forms. For example, a tree containing 1,2 can be:
1 <- root
\
2 <-- right son
or
2 <- root
/
1 <-- left son
So you can have a tree where 1 is the root and it goes 1->2->3... and no left sons. You can have 5 as the root with 4 and 6 as left and right sons respectively, and you can have many other trees with the same values, but different ordering (and maybe different roots)
How do I pick a root?
In whichever way you want to. Any number of your data can be the root.
You would like to choose the median though, in this case, 5. With that choice, your tree should get as balanced as it gets, four nodes on the left of 5 and four nodes in the right subtree of 5.
Notice that any element could be the rood (even a random choice, or the first number in your example).
Um, then why should I worried finding the median and not always picking the first number (easiest choice)?
Because you want your Binary Search Tree (BST) to be as balanced as possible.
If you pick the min or the max number as a root, then your tree will reach its maximum depth (worst case scenario), and will emulate a single linked list, which will result in a worst case scenario for the search algorithm as well. However, as Michel stated, picking the minimum or maximum item for the root won't necessarily lead to a degenerate tree. For example, if you picked the minimum item for the root and but the right branch that contains the rest of the items is balanced, then the tree's height is only one level more than optimum. You only get a degenerate tree if you choose the nodes in ascending or descending order.
Keep in mind that in a BST, this rule must be respected:
Left children are less than the parent node and
all right children are greater than the parent node.
For more, read How binary search tree is created??
I am preparing for an exam and I have stumbled on the following question:
Draw the binary search tree that would result if data were to be added in the following order:
10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3
Why is the tree that results unsuitable for efficient searching?
My Answer:
I would have thought when creating a BST that we start with the value 10 as the root node then add 9 as the left sub tree value on the first level. Then 8 to the left subtree of 9 and so on. I don't know why this makes it inefficient for searching though. Any ideas?
Since the values are in decreasing order, they get added to the left at each level, practically leaving you with a linked list, which takes O(N) to search, instead of the preferred O(logN) of a BST.
Drawing:
10
/
9
/
8
/
7
/
6
/
5
/
4
/
3
This would create a linked-list, since it would just be a series of nodes; which is a heavily unbalanced tree.
You should look up red-black trees. They have the same time-complexities, but it will constantly move around nodes, so that it is always forming a triangular shape. This will keep the tree balanced.
This is inefficient because the node will always be added to the left subtree of the prior node. Making a search check every every node in the list until it finds the result even though the answer will always be to the left thus actually making it take more computations than just simply having a list that is searched through a loop.
I had once known of a way to use logarithms to move from one leaf of a tree to the next "in-order" leaf of a tree. I think it involved taking a position value (rank?) of the "current" leaf and using it as a seed for a fresh traversal from the root down to the new target leaf - all the way using a log function test to determine whether to follow the right or left node down to the leaf.
I no longer recall how to exercise that technique. Can anyone re-introduce me?
I also don't recall if the technique required the tree to be balanced, or if it worked on n-trees or only binary trees. Any info would be appreciated.
Since you mentioned whether to go left or right, I'm going to assume you're talking about a binary tree specifically. In that case, I think you're right that there is a way. If your nodes are numbered left-to-right, top-to-bottom, starting with 1, then you can find the rank (depth in the tree) by taking the log2 of the node's number. To find that node again from the root, you can use the binary representation of the number, where 0 = left and 1 = right.
For example:
n = 11
11 in binary is 1011
We always ignore the first 1 since it's going to be there for every number (all nodes of rank n will be binary numbers with n+1 digits, with the first digit being 1). We're left with 011, which is saying from the root go left, then right, then right.
If you want to find the next in-order leaf, take the current leaf's number and add one, then traverse from the root using this method.
I believe this only works with balanced binary trees.
OK, this proposal requires more characters than I can fit into a comment box. Steven does not believe that knowing the depth of the node in the tree is useful. I think it is. I have been wrong in the past, and I'm sure I'll be wrong in the future, so I will try to explain how this idea works in an attempt to not be wrong in the present. If I am, I apologize ahead of time. I'm nearly certain I got it from one of my Algorithms and Datastructures courses, using the CLR book. Please excuse any slips in notation or nomenclature, I haven't studied this stuff in a while.
Quoting wikipedia, "a complete binary tree is a binary tree in which every level, except possibly the last, is completely filled, and all nodes are as far left as possible."
We are considering a complete tree with any branching degree (where a binary tree has a branching degree of two). Also, we are considering our nodes to have a 'positional value' which is an ordering of the positional value (top to bottom, left to right) of the node.
Now, if we are given a positional value, we can find the node in the following fashion. Take the log_base_n of the positional value of the element we are looking for (floor of this, we want an integer). Traverse down from the root that many times, minus one. Now, start looking through all the children of the nodes at this level. Your node you are searching for will be in this set.
This is an attempt in explaining the additional part of the wikipedia definition:
"This depth is equal to the integer part of log2(n) where n
is the number of nodes on the balanced tree.
Example 1: balanced tree with 1 node, log2(1) = 0 (depth = 0).
Example 2: balanced tree with 3 nodes, log2(3) = 1.59 (depth=1).
Example 3: balanced tree with 5 nodes, log2(5) = 2.32
(depth of tree is 2 nodes)."
This is useful, because you can simply traverse down to this level and then start looking around. It is useful and important to know the depth your node is located on, so you can start looking there, instead of starting to look at the beginning. Unless you know what level of the tree you are on, you get to start looking at all the nodes sequentially.
That is why I think it is helpful to know the depth of the node we are searching for.
It is a little bit odd, since having the "positional value" is not something we normally care about in a tree. I can see why Steve thought of this in terms of an array, since positional value is inherent in arrays.
-Brian J. Stinar-
Something that at least resembles your description is the Binary Heap, used a.o. in Priority Queues.
I think I've found the answer, or at least a facsimile.
Assume the tree nodes are numbered, starting at 1, top-down and left-to-right. Assume traversal begins at the root, and halts when it finds node X (which means the parent is linked to its children). Also, for quick reference, the base 2 logarithmic values for nodes 1 through 12 are:
log2(1) = 0.0
log2(2) = 1
log2(3) = 1.58
log2(4) = 2
log2(5) = 2.32
log2(6) = 2.58
log2(7) = 2.807
log2(8) = 3
log2(9) = 3.16
log2(10) = 3.32
log2(11) = 3.459
log2(12) = 3.58
The fractional portion represents a unique diagonal position (notice how nodes 3, 6, and 12 all have fractional portion 0.58). Also notice that every node belongs either to the left or right side of the tree, depending on whether the log fractional component is less or great than 0.5. Anecdotes aside, the algorithm for finding a node is then as follows:
examine fractional portion, if it is less than .5, turn left. Else turn right.
subtract one from the whole number portion of the log, stop if the value reaches zero.
double the fractional portion, and start over.
So, for example, if node 11 is what you seek then you start by computing the log which is 3.459. Then...
3-459 <=fraction less than .5: turn left and decrement whole number to 2.
2-918 <=doubled fraction more than .5: turn right and decrement whole number to 1.
1-836 <=doubling .918 gives 1.836: but only fractional part counts: turn right and dec prior whole number to 0. Done!!
With appropriate accomodations, the same technique appears to work for any balanced n-ary tree. For example, given a balanced ternary tree, the choice of following left, middle, or right edges is again based on the fractional portion of the log, as follows:
between 0.5-0.832: turn left (a one-third fraction range)
between 0.17-0.49: turn right (another one-third fraction range)
otherwise go down the middle. (the last one-third range)
The algorithm is adjusted by multiplying the fractional portion by 3 instead of 2. Again, a quick reference for those who want to test this last statement:
log3(1) = 0.0
log3(2) = 0.63
log3(3) = 1
log3(4) = 1.26
log3(5) = 1.46
log3(6) = 1.63
log3(7) = 1.77
log3(8) = 1.89
log3(9) = 2
At this point I wonder if there is an even more concise way to express this whole "log-based top-down selection of a node." I'm interested if anyone knows...
Case 1: Nodes have pointers to their parent
Starting from the node, traverse up the parent pointer until one with non-null right_child is found. Go to the right_child and traverse left_child as long as they are non-null.
Case 2: Nodes do not have pointers to the parent
Starting from the root, find the path to the node (including the root and the node). Then find the latest vertex (i.e. a node) in the path that has non-null right_child. Go the the right_child and traverse left_child as long as they are non-null.
In both cases, we traversing either up or down from the root to one of the nodes. The maximum of such traversal is in the order of the depth of the tree, hence logarithmic in the size of the nodes if the tree is balanced.
I need to find an algorithm for generating every possible permutation of a binary tree, and need to do so without using lists (this is because the tree itself carries semantics and restraints that cannot be translated into lists). I've found an algorithm that works for trees with the height of three or less, but whenever I get to greater heights, I loose one set of possible permutations per height added.
Each node carries information about its original state, so that one node can determine if all possible permutations have been tried for that node. Also, the node carries information on weather or not it's been 'swapped', i.e. if it has seen all possible permutations of it's subtree. The tree is left-centered, meaning that the right node should always (except in some cases that I don't need to cover for this algorithm) be a leaf node, while the left node is always either a leaf or a branch.
The algorithm I'm using at the moment can be described sort of like this:
if the left child node has been swapped
swap my right node with the left child nodes right node
set the left child node as 'unswapped'
if the current node is back to its original state
swap my right node with the lowest left nodes' right node
swap the lowest left nodes two childnodes
set my left node as 'unswapped'
set my left chilnode to use this as it's original state
set this node as swapped
return null
return this;
else if the left child has not been swapped
if the result of trying to permute left child is null
return the permutation of this node
else
return the permutation of the left child node
if this node has a left node and a right node that are both leaves
swap them
set this node to be 'swapped'
The desired behaviour of the algoritm would be something like this:
branch
/ |
branch 3
/ |
branch 2
/ |
0 1
branch
/ |
branch 3
/ |
branch 2
/ |
1 0 <-- first swap
branch
/ |
branch 3
/ |
branch 1 <-- second swap
/ |
2 0
branch
/ |
branch 3
/ |
branch 1
/ |
0 2 <-- third swap
branch
/ |
branch 3
/ |
branch 0 <-- fourth swap
/ |
1 2
and so on...
The structure is just completely unsuited for permutations, but since you know it's left-centered you might be able to make some assumptions that help you out.
I tried working it in a manner similar to yours, and I always got caught on the fact that you only have a binary piece of information (swapped or not) which isn't sufficient. For four leaves, you have 4! (24) possible combinations, but you only really have three branches (3 bits, 8 possible combinations) to store the swapped state information. You simply don't have a place to store this information.
But maybe you could write a traverser that goes through the tree and uses the number of leaves to determine how many swaps are needed, and then goes through those swaps systematically instead of just leaving it to the tree itself.
Something like
For each permutation
Encode the permutation as a series of swaps from the original
Run these swaps on the original tree
Do whatever processing is needed on the swapped tree
That might not be appropriate for your application, but you haven't given that many details about why you need to do it the way you're doing it. The way you're doing it now simply won't work, since factorial (the number of permutations) grows faster than exponential (the number of "swapped" bits you have). If you had 8 leaves, you would have 7 branches and 8 leaves for a total of 15 bits. There are 40320 permutation of 8 leaves, and only 32768 possible combinations of 15 bits. Mathematically, you simply cannot represent the permutations.
What is wrong with making a list of all items in the tree, use generative means to build all possible orders (see Knuth Vol 4), and then re-map them to the tree structure?
I'm trying to find the definition of a binary search tree and I keep finding different definitions everywhere.
Some say that for any given subtree the left child key is less than or equal to the root.
Some say that for any given subtree the right child key is greater than or equal to the root.
And my old college data structures book says "every element has a key and no two elements have the same key."
Is there a universal definition of a bst? Particularly in regards to what to do with trees with multiple instances of the same key.
EDIT: Maybe I was unclear, the definitions I'm seeing are
1) left <= root < right
2) left < root <= right
3) left < root < right, such that no duplicate keys exist.
Many algorithms will specify that duplicates are excluded. For example, the example algorithms in the MIT Algorithms book usually present examples without duplicates. It is fairly trivial to implement duplicates (either as a list at the node, or in one particular direction.)
Most (that I've seen) specify left children as <= and right children as >. Practically speaking, a BST which allows either of the right or left children to be equal to the root node, will require extra computational steps to finish a search where duplicate nodes are allowed.
It is best to utilize a list at the node to store duplicates, as inserting an '=' value to one side of a node requires rewriting the tree on that side to place the node as the child, or the node is placed as a grand-child, at some point below, which eliminates some of the search efficiency.
You have to remember, most of the classroom examples are simplified to portray and deliver the concept. They aren't worth squat in many real-world situations. But the statement, "every element has a key and no two elements have the same key", is not violated by the use of a list at the element node.
So go with what your data structures book said!
Edit:
Universal Definition of a Binary Search Tree involves storing and search for a key based on traversing a data structure in one of two directions. In the pragmatic sense, that means if the value is <>, you traverse the data structure in one of two 'directions'. So, in that sense, duplicate values don't make any sense at all.
This is different from BSP, or binary search partition, but not all that different. The algorithm to search has one of two directions for 'travel', or it is done (successfully or not.) So I apologize that my original answer didn't address the concept of a 'universal definition', as duplicates are really a distinct topic (something you deal with after a successful search, not as part of the binary search.)
If your binary search tree is a red black tree, or you intend to any kind of "tree rotation" operations, duplicate nodes will cause problems. Imagine your tree rule is this:
left < root <= right
Now imagine a simple tree whose root is 5, left child is nil, and right child is 5. If you do a left rotation on the root you end up with a 5 in the left child and a 5 in the root with the right child being nil. Now something in the left tree is equal to the root, but your rule above assumed left < root.
I spent hours trying to figure out why my red/black trees would occasionally traverse out of order, the problem was what I described above. Hopefully somebody reads this and saves themselves hours of debugging in the future!
All three definitions are acceptable and correct. They define different variations of a BST.
Your college data structure's book failed to clarify that its definition was not the only possible.
Certainly, allowing duplicates adds complexity. If you use the definition "left <= root < right" and you have a tree like:
3
/ \
2 4
then adding a "3" duplicate key to this tree will result in:
3
/ \
2 4
\
3
Note that the duplicates are not in contiguous levels.
This is a big issue when allowing duplicates in a BST representation as the one above: duplicates may be separated by any number of levels, so checking for duplicate's existence is not that simple as just checking for immediate childs of a node.
An option to avoid this issue is to not represent duplicates structurally (as separate nodes) but instead use a counter that counts the number of occurrences of the key. The previous example would then have a tree like:
3(1)
/ \
2(1) 4(1)
and after insertion of the duplicate "3" key it will become:
3(2)
/ \
2(1) 4(1)
This simplifies lookup, removal and insertion operations, at the expense of some extra bytes and counter operations.
In a BST, all values descending on the left side of a node are less than (or equal to, see later) the node itself. Similarly, all values descending on the right side of a node are greater than (or equal to) that node value(a).
Some BSTs may choose to allow duplicate values, hence the "or equal to" qualifiers above. The following example may clarify:
14
/ \
13 22
/ / \
1 16 29
/ \
28 29
This shows a BST that allows duplicates(b) - you can see that to find a value, you start at the root node and go down the left or right subtree depending on whether your search value is less than or greater than the node value.
This can be done recursively with something like:
def hasVal (node, srchval):
if node == NULL:
return false
if node.val == srchval:
return true
if node.val > srchval:
return hasVal (node.left, srchval)
return hasVal (node.right, srchval)
and calling it with:
foundIt = hasVal (rootNode, valToLookFor)
Duplicates add a little complexity since you may need to keep searching once you've found your value, for other nodes of the same value. Obviously that doesn't matter for hasVal since it doesn't matter how many there are, just whether at least one exists. It will however matter for things like countVal, since it needs to know how many there are.
(a) You could actually sort them in the opposite direction should you so wish provided you adjust how you search for a specific key. A BST need only maintain some sorted order, whether that's ascending or descending (or even some weird multi-layer-sort method like all odd numbers ascending, then all even numbers descending) is not relevant.
(b) Interestingly, if your sorting key uses the entire value stored at a node (so that nodes containing the same key have no other extra information to distinguish them), there can be performance gains from adding a count to each node, rather than allowing duplicate nodes.
The main benefit is that adding or removing a duplicate will simply modify the count rather than inserting or deleting a new node (an action that may require re-balancing the tree).
So, to add an item, you first check if it already exists. If so, just increment the count and exit. If not, you need to insert a new node with a count of one then rebalance.
To remove an item, you find it then decrement the count - only if the resultant count is zero do you then remove the actual node from the tree and rebalance.
Searches are also quicker given there are fewer nodes but that may not be a large impact.
For example, the following two trees (non-counting on the left, and counting on the right) would be equivalent (in the counting tree, i.c means c copies of item i):
__14__ ___22.2___
/ \ / \
14 22 7.1 29.1
/ \ / \ / \ / \
1 14 22 29 1.1 14.3 28.1 30.1
\ / \
7 28 30
Removing the leaf-node 22 from the left tree would involve rebalancing (since it now has a height differential of two) the resulting 22-29-28-30 subtree such as below (this is one option, there are others that also satisfy the "height differential must be zero or one" rule):
\ \
22 29
\ / \
29 --> 28 30
/ \ /
28 30 22
Doing the same operation on the right tree is a simple modification of the root node from 22.2 to 22.1 (with no rebalancing required).
In the book "Introduction to algorithms", third edition, by Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest and Stein, a binary search tree (BST) is explicitly defined as allowing duplicates. This can be seen in figure 12.1 and the following (page 287):
"The keys in a binary search tree are always stored in such a way as to satisfy the binary-search-tree property: Let x be a node in a binary search tree. If y is a node in the left subtree of x, then y:key <= x:key. If y is a node in the right subtree of x, then y:key >= x:key."
In addition, a red-black tree is then defined on page 308 as:
"A red-black tree is a binary search tree with one extra bit of storage per node: its color"
Therefore, red-black trees defined in this book support duplicates.
Any definition is valid. As long as you are consistent in your implementation (always put equal nodes to the right, always put them to the left, or never allow them) then you're fine. I think it is most common to not allow them, but it is still a BST if they are allowed and place either left or right.
I just want to add some more information to what #Robert Paulson answered.
Let's assume that node contains key & data. So nodes with the same key might contain different data.
(So the search must find all nodes with the same key)
left <= cur < right
left < cur <= right
left <= cur <= right
left < cur < right && cur contain sibling nodes with the same key.
left < cur < right, such that no duplicate keys exist.
1 & 2. works fine if the tree does not have any rotation-related functions to prevent skewness.
But this form doesn't work with AVL tree or Red-Black tree, because rotation will break the principal.
And even if search() finds the node with the key, it must traverse down to the leaf node for the nodes with duplicate key.
Making time complexity for search = theta(logN)
3. will work well with any form of BST with rotation-related functions.
But the search will take O(n), ruining the purpose of using BST.
Say we have the tree as below, with 3) principal.
12
/ \
10 20
/ \ /
9 11 12
/ \
10 12
If we do search(12) on this tree, even tho we found 12 at the root, we must keep search both left & right child to seek for the duplicate key.
This takes O(n) time as I've told.
4. is my personal favorite. Let's say sibling means the node with the same key.
We can change above tree into below.
12 - 12 - 12
/ \
10 - 10 20
/ \
9 11
Now any search will take O(logN) because we don't have to traverse children for the duplicate key.
And this principal also works well with AVL or RB tree.
Working on a red-black tree implementation I was getting problems validating the tree with multiple keys until I realized that with the red-black insert rotation, you have to loosen the constraint to
left <= root <= right
Since none of the documentation I was looking at allowed for duplicate keys and I didn't want to rewrite the rotation methods to account for it, I just decided to modify my nodes to allow for multiple values within the node, and no duplicate keys in the tree.
Those three things you said are all true.
Keys are unique
To the left are keys less than this one
To the right are keys greater than this one
I suppose you could reverse your tree and put the smaller keys on the right, but really the "left" and "right" concept is just that: a visual concept to help us think about a data structure which doesn't really have a left or right, so it doesn't really matter.
1.) left <= root < right
2.) left < root <= right
3.) left < root < right, such that no duplicate keys exist.
I might have to go and dig out my algorithm books, but off the top of my head (3) is the canonical form.
(1) or (2) only come about when you start to allow duplicates nodes and you put duplicate nodes in the tree itself (rather than the node containing a list).
Duplicate Keys
• What happens if there's more than one data item with
the same key?
– This presents a slight problem in red-black trees.
– It's important that nodes with the same key are distributed on
both sides of other nodes with the same key.
– That is, if keys arrive in the order 50, 50, 50,
• you want the second 50 to go to the right of the first one, and the
third 50 to go to the left of the first one.
• Otherwise, the tree becomes unbalanced.
• This could be handled by some kind of randomizing
process in the insertion algorithm.
– However, the search process then becomes more complicated if
all items with the same key must be found.
• It's simpler to outlaw items with the same key.
– In this discussion we'll assume duplicates aren't allowed
One can create a linked list for each node of the tree that contains duplicate keys and store data in the list.
The elements ordering relation <= is a total order so the relation must be reflexive but commonly a binary search tree (aka BST) is a tree without duplicates.
Otherwise if there are duplicates you need run twice or more the same function of deletion!