Binary Search Trees

A binary tree:
No node has more than two child nodes (called child
subtrees).
Child subtrees must be differentiated, into:
Left-child subtree
Right-child subtree
A search tree:
For every node, p:
All nodes in the left subtree are < p
All nodes in the right subtree are > p
Binary Search Tree - Example

Alex
Alex
Angela
Angela Abner
Abner
Abigail
Abigail
Adela
Adela
Adam
Adam Agnes
Agnes
Alice
Alice
Allen
Allen
Audrey
Audrey
Arthur
Arthur
Binary Search Trees (cont)
Searching for a value is in a tree of N nodes
is:
O(log N) if the tree is balanced
O(N) if the tree is unbalanced
Unbalanced Binary Search Trees
Below is a binary search tree that is NOT
balanced

Alex
Alex
Angela
Angela
Abner
Adam
Abigail
Abigail
Adela
Adela
Adam
Abner
Agnes
Agnes
Alice
Alice
Allen
Allen
Audrey
Audrey
Arthur
Arthur
Properties of Binary Trees
A binary tree is a full binary tree if and only
if:
Each non leaf node has exactly two child nodes
All leaf nodes have identical path length
It is called full since all possible node slots
are occupied
A Full Binary Tree - Example

Full Binary Trees
A Full binary tree of height h will have
how many leaves?


A Full binary tree of height h will have
how many nodes?
Complete Binary Trees
A complete binary tree (of height h)
satisfies the following conditions:
Level 0 to h-1 represent a full binary tree of
height h-1
One or more nodes in level h-1 may have 0, or
1 child nodes
If j,k are nodes in level h-1, then j has more
child nodes than k if and only if j is to the left
of k
Complete Binary Trees - Example

B
B
A
A
C
C
D
D
E
E
H
H
I
I
J
J
K
K
F
F
G
G
Figure 13.8 A complete binary tree Figure 13.8 A complete binary tree
Complete Binary Trees (cont)
Given a set of N nodes, a complete binary
tree of these nodes provides the maximum
number of leaves with the minimal average
path length (per node)
The complete binary tree containing n
nodes must have at least one path from root
to leaf of length log n
Height-balanced Binary Tree
A height-balanced binary tree is a binary
tree such that:
The left & right subtrees for any given node
differ in height by no more than one
Note: Each complete binary tree is a height-
balanced binary tree
Height-balanced Binary Tree - Example

N
M
N-M<=1
Height balanced is a local property
Advantages of Height-balanced Binary Trees
Height-balanced binary trees are balanced
Operations that run in time proportional to
the height of the tree are O(log n), n the
number of nodes with limited performance
variance
Variance is a very important concern in real
time applications, e.g. connecting calls in a
telephone network