Basic Algorithms

Problem Set 3, Problem 1 Write the algorithm closestKeyBefore. It uses the same idea as BinarySearch.

When you do question 1 you will see that the complexity is Θ(log(n)). Proving this is not hard but is not part of the problem set.

When you do question 1 you will see that closestElemBefore, closestKeyAfter, and closestElemAfter are all very similar to closestKeyBefore. Hence they are all logarithmic algorithms. Proving this is not hard but is not part of the problem set.

Performance Summary of the Array-Based Implementations

Our goal now is to find a better implementation so that all the complexities are logarithmic. This will require us to shift from vectors to trees.

3.1.2 Binary Search Trees

This section gives a simple tree-based implementation, which alas fails to achieve the logarithmic bounds we seek. But it is a good start and motivates the AVL trees we study in 3.2 that do achieve the desired bounds.

Definition: A binary search tree is a tree in which each internal node v stores an item such that the keys stored in every node in the left subtree of v are less than or equal to the key at v which is less than or equal to every key stored in the right subtree.

From the definition we see easily that an inorder traversal of the tree visits the internal nodes in nondecreasing order of the keys they store.

You search by starting at the root and going left or right if the desired key is smaller or larger respectively than the key at the current node. If the key at the current node is the key you seek, you are done. If you reach a leaf the desired key is not present.

Do some examples using the tree on the right. E.g. search for 17, 80, 55, and 65.

Homework: R-3.1 and R-3.2

3.1.3 Searching in a Binary Search Tree

Here is the formal algorithm described above.

Algorithm TreeSearch(k,v)
Input:  A search key k and a node v of a binary search tree.
Output: A node w in the subtree routed at v such that either
        w is internal and k is stored at w or
        w is a leaf where k would be stored if it existed

if v is a leaf then
    return v
if k=k(v) then
    return v
if k<k(v) then
    return TreeSearch(k,T.leftChild(v))
if k>k(v) then
    return TreeSearch(k,T.rightChild(v))

Draw a tree on the board and illustrate both finding a k and no such key exists.

Analysis of Binary Tree Searching

It is easy to see that only a couple of operations are done per recursive call and that each call goes down a level in the tree. Hence the complexity is O(height).

So the question becomes "How high is a tree with n nodes?". As we saw last chapter the answer is "It depends.".

Next section we will learn a technique for keeping trees low.

3.1.4 Insertion in a Binary Search Tree

To insert an item with key k, first execute w←TreeSearch(k,T.root()). Recall that if w is internal, k is already in w, and if w is a leaf, k "belongs" in w. So we proceed as follows.

• If w is a leaf, replace w with an internal node containing k (having two leaves as children).
• If w is internal and duplicate keys are not permitted, signal an error.
• If w is internal and duplicate keys are permitted, call w=TreeSearch(k,T.leftChild(v)) or w=TreeSearch(k,T.rightChild(v)) and proceed as above.

Draw examples on the board showing both cases (leaf and internal returned).

Once again we perform a constant amount of work per level of the tree implying that the complexity is O(height).

3.1.5 Removal in a Binary Search Tree

This is the trickiest part, especially in one case as we describe below. The key concern is that we cannot simply remove an item from an internal node and leave a hole as this would make future searches fail. The beginning of the removal technique is familiar: w=TreeSearch(k,T.root()). If w is a leaf, k is not present, which we signal.

If w is internal, we have found k, but now the fun begins. Returning the element with key k is easy, it is the element stored in w. We need to actually remove w, but we cannot leave a hole. There are three cases.

1. If we are lucky both of w's children are leaves. Then we can simply replace w with a leaf. (Recall that leaves do not contain items.) This is the trivial case
   
   
2. The next case is when one child of w is a leaf and the other, call it z, is an internal node. In this case we can simply replace w by z; that is have the parent of w now point to z. This removes w as desired and also removes the leaf child of w, which is OK since leaves do not contain items. This is the easy case.
   
   
3. Note that the above two cases can be considered the same. In both cases we notice that one child of w is a leaf and replace w by the other child (and its descendents, if any).
   
   
4. Now we get to the difficult case: both children of w are internal nodes. What we will do is to replace the item in w with the item that has the next highest key.
   
   
   • First we must find the item with the next highest key. But that is simply the next item in the inorder traversal. So we go right and then keep going left until we get a leaf. The parent of this leaf is the item we seek. Call the parent y.
     
     
   • Store the item in y in the node w. This removes the old item of w, which we wanted to do.
     • Does the tree still have its items in the correct order? That is are parents still bigger than (or equal to if we permit duplicate keys) all of the left subtree and smaller than all of the right subtree?
     • Yes. The only new parent is the item y which has now moved to node w. But this is the item right after the old item in w. Since it came from the right subtree it is bigger than the left and since it was the smallest in the right, it is smaller than the right.
     
     
   • But what about the old node y? It's left child is a leaf so it is the easy or trivial case and we just replace y by the other child and its descendants.

3.1.6 Performance of Binary Search Trees

We have seen that findElement, insertItem, and removeElement have complexity O(height). It is also true, but we will not show it, that one can implement findAllElements and removeAllElements in time O(height+numberOfElements). You might think removeAllElements should be constant time since the resulting tree is just a root so we can make it in constant time. But removeAllElements must also return an iterator that when invoked must generate each of the elements removed.

Comments on average vs worst case behavior

In a sense that we will not make precise, binary search trees have logarithmic performance since `most' trees have logarithmic height.

Nonetheless we know that there are trees with height Θ(n). You produced several of them for problem set 2. For these trees binary search takes linear time, i.e., is slow. Our goal now is to fancy up the implementation so that the trees are never very high. We can do this since the trees are not handed to us. Instead they are build up using our insertItem method.