Binary tree terminology in Data Structures Theory - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Binary Tree Terminology

📖 Scenario: You are learning about binary trees, a common way to organize data in computer science. Understanding the basic terms helps you describe and work with these trees clearly.

🎯 Goal: Build a simple representation of a binary tree using a dictionary to understand key terms like root, parent, child, leaf, and subtree.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a dictionary representing nodes and their children

Add a variable to identify the root node

Use a loop to list all leaf nodes

Add a final statement describing the subtree of a specific node

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Binary trees are used in many areas like organizing data for quick search, sorting, and managing hierarchical information such as file systems.

💼 Career

Understanding binary tree terminology is essential for software developers, data scientists, and anyone working with algorithms or data structures.

1

Create the binary tree structure

Create a dictionary called binary_tree with these exact entries: 'A': ['B', 'C'], 'B': ['D', 'E'], 'C': ['F', 'G'], 'D': [], 'E': [], 'F': [], 'G': []. This represents each node and its children.

Data Structures Theory

# Create the binary_tree dictionary with nodes and their children
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Think of each key as a node and the list as its children nodes.

2

Identify the root node

Create a variable called root and set it to the string 'A', which is the root node of the binary tree.

Data Structures Theory

binary_tree = {
    'A': ['B', 'C'],
    'B': ['D', 'E'],
    'C': ['F', 'G'],
    'D': [],
    'E': [],
    'F': [],
    'G': []
}
# Set the root node
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The root is the top node with no parent, here it is 'A'.

3

List all leaf nodes

Create a list called leaves that contains all nodes from binary_tree whose children list is empty. Use a for loop with variables node and children to iterate over binary_tree.items().

Data Structures Theory

binary_tree = {
    'A': ['B', 'C'],
    'B': ['D', 'E'],
    'C': ['F', 'G'],
    'D': [],
    'E': [],
    'F': [],
    'G': []
}
root = 'A'
# Create leaves list using a for loop
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Leaf nodes have no children, so their children list is empty.

4

Describe the subtree of node 'B'

Create a variable called subtree_B and set it to the list of children of node 'B' from binary_tree. This represents the subtree rooted at node 'B'.

Data Structures Theory

binary_tree = {
    'A': ['B', 'C'],
    'B': ['D', 'E'],
    'C': ['F', 'G'],
    'D': [],
    'E': [],
    'F': [],
    'G': []
}
root = 'A'
leaves = []
for node, children in binary_tree.items():
    if children == []:
        leaves.append(node)
# Set subtree_B to children of 'B'
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The subtree of a node includes its children. Here, get the children of 'B'.