Tree Traversals
Master the different ways to visit every node in a tree: Depth-First Search and Breadth-First Search.
Master the different ways to visit every node in a tree: Depth-First Search and Breadth-First Search. This hands-on tutorial focuses on practical implementation of tree traversals concepts.
Tree Traversals
Traversing a tree means visiting every node once in a specific order. Unlike linear structures (arrays, linked lists), there are multiple logical ways to traverse a tree.
1. Depth-First Search (DFS)
DFS uses recursion (or a stack) to go as deep as possible before backtracking.
A. Preorder (Root, Left, Right)
Order: Visit Root -> Traverse Left Subtree -> Traverse Right Subtree.
B. Inorder (Left, Root, Right)
Order: Traverse Left Subtree -> Visit Root -> Traverse Right Subtree.
[!TIP] Inorder traversal of a BST always yields values in sorted order!
C. Postorder (Left, Right, Root)
Order: Traverse Left Subtree -> Traverse Right Subtree -> Visit Root.
2. Breadth-First Search (BFS)
Also known as Level Order Traversal. We visit all nodes at the current level before moving to the next.
3. Implementation in Python
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Quiz
Quiz
Question 1 of 2Which traversal of a BST gives the elements in non-decreasing order?