30 Days of Algorithms: From Zero to Intermediate (12/30) — Binary Tree
2 min readMay 27, 2024
A tree is a hierarchical data structure.
Data structures such as lists, queues, and stacks are linear. Their items are stored in a sequential way. However, a tree is a non-linear data structure because there is a parent-child relationship between the items.
Terminology
- Node — It is a fundamental building block that holds data and references to other nodes
- Root — It is the topmost node in the tree. In every tree there is always one unique root node
- Subtree — It's a smaller part of tree that’s contained entirely within a larger tree
- Degree — The total number of children a given node has
- Leaf node —It's a node that doesn't have any children. The degree of leaf node is always 0
- Edge — The connection between any two nodes. The number of edges in a tree is always one less than the number of nodes
- Sibling — Nodes with the same parent
- Level — It refers to vertical distance from the root node to any node. The level of root node is zero. The children of root node have level 1
- Height of a tree — It’s the number of edges from the root node to the farthest leaf node
