Can anyone point out a way of getting the depth of a Node in a Binary Tree (not a balanced one, or BST) without using recursion? Ideally in Java/C/C#
The node is represented as:
class Node
{
Node Left;
Node Right;
string Value;
int Depth;
}
Using Level Order with a FIFO list was my first thought, but I was stumped at detecting when the level changes, particular for unbalanced trees.
I assume you mean filling in the Depth value on node, and/or finding max depth. One way to do this would be using two lists, and doing the level order as suggested. It'd be akin to:
int level=0;
List<Node> currentLevel = new List<Node>{root};
while(currentLevel.Count != 0)
{
List<Node> nextLevel = new List<Node>{};
foreach(Node node in currentLevel)
{
if(node.Right!=null) nextLevel.Add(node.Right);
if(node.Left != null) nextLevel.Add(node.Left);
node.Depth=level;
}
level++;
currentLevel=nextLevel;
}
Basically, you enumerate each node on a given level, then find each node on the next level; until you run out of nodes/levels. Clearly, List could be replaced with just about any list like data structure (Linked List, Queue, etc). And the last value of 'level' would be max depth + 1. I suspect.
One other clarification based on re reading of the question; if you are searching for a node with a specific value, and want to find its depth, you would change the foreach loop to include 'if(node.Value==searchValue) return level;'. And, technically, if you are searching for a specific value, you shouldn't be doing a Level Order Traversal, but rather a search for the value using relevant Binary Tree properties (e.g. val < currentNode.Value goto left else goto right), and tracking your depth. If you are given only the Node and want to find its depth, you would either need to perform a binary search for the node from root, or you would need to track the Node's parent.
You can implement any resursive method with a stack, which is how resursion works anyways. Imagine your resursive function looks like
function int getDepth (Node head, string val)
{
if (head == NULL)
return -1;
if (val == head.Value)
return head.Depth;
return MAX(getDepth(head.Left, val), getDepth(head.Right, val);
}
The non-resursive function looks something like
function int getDepth (Node head, string val)
{
Stack s = new Stack();
s.push(head);
while(s.count > 0)
{
Node temp = s.pop();
if (temp != NULL)
{
if (s.Value == val)
return s.Depth;
else
{
s.push(temp.Left);
s.push(temp.Right);
}
}
}
return -1;
}
EDIT:
This function sets the depth for each node
function void setDepth (Node head)
{
Stack s = new Stack();
head.Depth = 0;
s.push(head);
while(s.count > 0)
{
Node temp = s.pop();
if (temp != NULL)
{
if (temp.Left != NULL)
{
temp.Left.Depth = temp.Depth + 1;
s.push(temp.Left);
}
if (temp.Right != NULL)
{
temp.Right.Depth = temp.Depth + 1;
s.push(temp.Right);
}
}
}
}
Here's a simpler solution, I think. If the data structure allowed for an arbitrary number of children, this solution could be easily modified for that case too:
int getDepthNoRecursion(Node n) {
if(n == null) {
return 0;
}
int retval = 0;
n.depth = 1;
Stack s = new Stack();
s.push(n);
while(!s.isEmpty()) {
Node n = (Node) s.pop();
int currDepth = n.depth;
if(currDepth > retval) {
retval = currDepth;
}
if(n.left != null) {
n.left.depth = currDepth + 1;
s.push(n.left);
}
if(n.right != null) {
n.right.depth = currDepth + 1;
s.push(n.right);
}
}
return retval;
}
class Node {
Node left;
Node right;
int depth = 0;
}
Here is the most efficient solution I've come up with (C++). The trick is to use a second queue to store the children of all nodes at your current level. This will work for balanced and unbalanced binary trees.
template <class T>
struct TreeNode {
TreeNode<T>* left_;
TreeNode<T>* right_;
T* data_;
};
template <class T>
int find_depth( const TreeNode<T>* root ) {
if ( root == NULL ) return 0;
int depth = 0;
std::queue<const TreeNode<T>*>* q1 = new std::queue<const TreeNode<T>*>;
std::queue<const TreeNode<T>*>* q2 = new std::queue<const TreeNode<T>*>;
q1->push( root );
while ( !q1->empty() ) {
// At the top of the outer loop q1 contains a complete horizontal level of the tree
depth++;
// Swap the queue pointers to avoid any deep copies
std::queue<const TreeNode<T>*>* tmpQ = q2;
q2 = q1;
q1 = tmpQ;
// Iterate over this level, inserting all children into q1
while( !q2->empty() ) {
const TreeNode<T>* node = q2->front();
if ( node->left_ != NULL ) q1->push( node->left_ );
if ( node->right_ != NULL ) q1->push( node->right_ );
q2->pop();
}
}
delete q1;
delete q2;
return depth;
}