A binary tree is a general and powerful data structure that looks like a real tree. It contains nodes in a connected graph where each node has a parent node and a child node in a specific order. In this article, I will walk you through the implementation of binary trees using C++.
What are Binary Trees?
In computer science, a tree is a data structure made up of nodes and edges with a tree-like structure. Binary trees are the most common type of tree used in computing. It is a tree in which each node has at most two child nodes.
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Let’s take a look at the terms you need to know to understand and implement a binary tree:
- Node: The endpoint of a tree.
- Root: The highest node in a tree.
- Parent: Each node has at least one sub-node called the parent node.
- Child: Moving away from the root of a tree, a node is generated from a parent node called a child node.
- Leaf Node: Leaf nodes are external nodes that have no child nodes.
- Internal Node: Internal nodes are inner nodes that have at least one child node.
- Depth: The number of edges from the node to the root of a tree is called the depth of a tree.
- Height: The number of edges between the node and the deepest leaf is called the height of a tree.
A binary tree is made up of nodes where each node contains a left and right pointer and a data item. It also has a root pointer to the topmost node in the tree. The left and right pointers point to the small subtrees on either side. It also has an empty tree which represents a binary tree with no elements.
Binary Trees using C++
A binary tree is a fundamental data structure which is very useful for storing sorted data and then retrieving the stored data. Now let’s see how to implement Binary Trees using the C++ programming language:
Summary
Binary tree search operations are faster compared to other trees in computer science, which is why they are the most widely used trees in computer science. I hope you liked this article on what are binary trees and its implementation using the C++ programming language. Feel free to ask your valuable questions in the comments section below.