24. DSA with C++ - Trees data structure and its properties

Trees data structure and its properties

In computer science, a tree is a widely used hierarchical data structure. It consists of nodes connected by edges, where each node can have zero or more child nodes. Unlike binary trees, which have at most two child nodes per parent, trees can have any number of child nodes. Here are some properties and concepts related to trees:

1. Root: The root is the topmost node of the tree. It is the starting point for traversing the tree and does not have any parent nodes.
2. Node: A node represents an element in the tree. Each node can contain a value or additional information and may have zero or more child nodes.
3. Parent and Child: Nodes in a tree have a hierarchical relationship. A node that is directly connected to another node is called its child, and the node it is connected to is called its parent.
4. Siblings: Nodes that have the same parent are called siblings. They share the same level in the tree.
5. Leaf: A leaf node is a node that does not have any child nodes. It is also known as a terminal node.
6. Depth and Level: The depth of a node is the number of edges from the root to that node. The root node has a depth of 0. The level of a node is its depth plus 1. The level of the root node is 1.
7. Height: The height of a tree is the maximum depth of any node in the tree. It represents the length of the longest path from the root to a leaf.
8. Degree: The degree of a node is the number of its child nodes. It indicates how many branches extend from that node.
9. Forest: A forest is a collection of disjoint trees. It consists of multiple trees without any shared nodes.
10. Traversal: Tree traversal refers to the process of visiting all nodes in a tree. Common traversal algorithms include depth-first traversal (pre-order, in-order, post-order) and breadth-first traversal (level order).

Trees are used in various applications such as file systems, hierarchical data structures, databases, search algorithms, and more. They provide an efficient way to organize and manage hierarchical relationships between data elements.