Binary trees are a fundamental data structure in computer science, often used to store and retrieve data efficiently. They are composed of nodes, where each node has at most two children, referred to as the left child and the right child.
Key Concepts
- Node: The basic unit of a binary tree, containing data and references to its children.
- Root: The topmost node in a binary tree.
- Leaf: A node with no children.
- Internal Node: A node with at least one child.
Types of Binary Trees
- Binary Search Tree (BST): A binary tree in which each node has a key greater than all the keys in the node's left subtree and less than those in its right subtree.
- Complete Binary Tree: Every level, except possibly the last, is completely filled, and all nodes are as far left as possible.
- Balanced Binary Tree: A binary tree in which the depth of the two subtrees of every node never differ by more than one.
Operations
- Insertion: Adding a new node to the tree.
- Deletion: Removing a node from the tree.
- Traversal: Visiting all nodes in a specific order (in-order, pre-order, post-order).
Binary Tree Example
For more information on binary trees, you can read our comprehensive guide on Binary Tree Operations.