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Threaded Binary Trees

The document discusses threaded binary trees, which modify a standard binary tree by making unused child pointers point to predecessor or successor nodes in order to enable more efficient traversals without recursion. Specifically, it covers: - Making right child pointers point to inorder successors and left pointers point to predecessors. - Classifying trees as left-threaded, right-threaded, or fully threaded based on which pointers are used. - Enabling non-recursive inorder traversal by following threads to predecessors/successors rather than using a stack. - Storing threading information (predecessor vs child) in tags on the pointers to distinguish types.

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Vishal Singh
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98 views10 pages

Threaded Binary Trees

The document discusses threaded binary trees, which modify a standard binary tree by making unused child pointers point to predecessor or successor nodes in order to enable more efficient traversals without recursion. Specifically, it covers: - Making right child pointers point to inorder successors and left pointers point to predecessors. - Classifying trees as left-threaded, right-threaded, or fully threaded based on which pointers are used. - Enabling non-recursive inorder traversal by following threads to predecessors/successors rather than using a stack. - Storing threading information (predecessor vs child) in tags on the pointers to distinguish types.

Uploaded by

Vishal Singh
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
Download as pdf or txt
Download as pdf or txt
You are on page 1/ 10

ES 103: Data Structures and Algorithms 2012

Instructor Dr Atul Gupta

Threaded Binary Trees


Atul Gupta

Binary Tree Traversals


Depth-First Traversals
Pre-order
Post-order
In-order

Breadth First Traversals


Note that
1. these traversals use stacks/queues as auxiliary data structures
2. It is not simple to determine predecessor/successor for an order
traversal
3. Here we demonstrate how to perform traversal without
stacks/queues and to get the predecessor/successor for an order
traversal

ES 103: Data Structures and Algorithms 2012


Instructor Dr Atul Gupta

Binary Trees
An observation: Majority of pointers in a
binary tree are NULL
e.g. a binary tree with n nodes has n+1 NULL
pointers, and they are wasted

Treaded Binary Tree


"A binary tree is threaded by making all right
child pointers that would normally be null point
to the inorder successor of the node, and all left
child pointers that would normally be null point
to the inorder predecessor of the node

ES 103: Data Structures and Algorithms 2012


Instructor Dr Atul Gupta

Threaded Binary Tree


makes it possible to traverse the values in the
binary tree via a linear traversal that is more
rapid than a recursive in-order traversal
to discover the parent of a node from a
threaded binary tree

Threaded Binary Trees: Classification


Based on left/right
threaded
Left-threaded
Right-threaded
Fully Threaded

Based on traversal
order
Preorder threaded
In-order threaded
Post-order threaded

ES 103: Data Structures and Algorithms 2012


Instructor Dr Atul Gupta

Normal Binary Tree vs. Threaded


Binary Tree
Normal Binary Tree
Left

data

Right

struct BinaryTree {
struct BinaryTree *left;
int data;
struct BinaryTree *right;
}

Threaded Binary Tree


Left

LTag

data

RTag

Right

struct ThreadedBinaryTree {
struct ThreadedBinaryTree *left;
int Ltag;
int data;
int Rtag;
struct ThreadedBinaryTree *right;
}
Meaning
LTag == 0

Left points to in-order predecessor

LTag == 1

Left point to left child

RTag == 0

Left points to in-order successor

RTag == 1

Right points to right child

Non recursive Inorder traversal for a


Threaded Binary Tree
1. curr-node node  leftmost (root)
2. While (curr_node != Null)
a. print (curr_node)
b. If (curr_node.RTag == 0) then
curr_node  curr_node.right
go to step 2.
c. else
curr_node  leftmost(curr_node.right )
go to step 2.

ES 103: Data Structures and Algorithms 2012


Instructor Dr Atul Gupta

Threaded Tree Traversal


Output
1

6
8

3
1

11
9

13

Start at leftmost node, print it


9

Threaded Tree Traversal


Output
1
3

6
8

3
1

11
9

13

Follow thread to right, print node


10

ES 103: Data Structures and Algorithms 2012


Instructor Dr Atul Gupta

Threaded Tree Traversal


Output
1
3
5

6
8

3
1

11
9

13

Follow link to right, go to leftmost


node and print
11

Threaded Tree Traversal


Output
1
3
5
6

6
8

3
1

11
9

13

Follow thread to right, print node


Amir Kamil

8/8/02

12

ES 103: Data Structures and Algorithms 2012


Instructor Dr Atul Gupta

Threaded Tree Traversal


Output
1
3
5
6
7

6
8

3
1

11
9

13

Follow link to right, go to


leftmost node and print
Amir Kamil

8/8/02

13

Threaded Tree Traversal


Output
1
3
5
6
7
8

6
8

3
1

11
9

13

Follow thread to right, print node


14

ES 103: Data Structures and Algorithms 2012


Instructor Dr Atul Gupta

Threaded Tree Traversal


Output
1
3
5
6
7
8
9

6
8

3
1

11
9

13

Follow link to right, go to


leftmost node and print
15

Threaded Tree Traversal


6
8

3
1

11
9

13

Output
1
3
5
6
7
8
9
11

Follow thread to right, print node


16

ES 103: Data Structures and Algorithms 2012


Instructor Dr Atul Gupta

Threaded Tree Traversal


6
8

3
1

11
9

13

Output
1
3
5
6
7
8
9
11
13

Follow link to right, go to


leftmost node and print
17

Threaded Tree Traversal Algorithm


(In-Order)
struct Node* leftMost(struct Node** n) {
struct Node* ans = n;
if (ans == null) {
return null;
}
while (ansleft != null) {
ans = ans  left;
}
return ans;
}

void inOrder(struct Node* n) {


struct Node* cur = leftmost(n);
while (cur != null) {
print(cur);
if not (cur  RTag) {
cur = cur  right;
} else {
cur = leftmost(cur  right);
}
}
}

18

ES 103: Data Structures and Algorithms 2012


Instructor Dr Atul Gupta

Threaded Tree Traversals


Similarly can also be employed to pre-order
and post-order traversals

Summary: Threaded Binary Tree


A useful idea to utilize the otherwise wasted links to store
meaningful information
Can be threaded using any order traversal
Useful in applications which require
Information about predecessor and successor nodes
For efficient order traversals

10

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