Last Updated: 9 Oct, 2020

Boundary Traversal of Binary Tree

Hard

Asked in companies

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Problem statement

You are given a binary tree having 'n' nodes.

The boundary nodes of a binary tree include the nodes from the left and right boundaries and the leaf nodes, each node considered once.

Figure out the boundary nodes of this binary tree in an Anti-Clockwise direction starting from the root node.

Example :

Input: Consider the binary tree A as shown in the figure:

alt text

Output: [10, 5, 3, 7, 18, 25, 20]

Explanation: As shown in the figure

The nodes on the left boundary are [10, 5, 3]

The nodes on the right boundary are [10, 20, 25]

The leaf nodes are [3, 7, 18, 25].

Please note that nodes 3 and 25 appear in two places but are considered once.

Input Format:

The only line contains elements in the level order form. The line consists of values of nodes separated by a single space. In case a node is null, we take -1 in its place.

For example, the input for the tree depicted in the below image will be:

alt text

1
2 3
4 -1 5 6
-1 7 -1 -1 -1 -1
-1 -1

Explanation :
Level 1 :
The root node of the tree is 1

Level 2 :
Left child of 1 = 2
Right child of 1 = 3

Level 3 :
Left child of 2 = 4
Right child of 2 = null (-1)
Left child of 3 = 5
Right child of 3 = 6

Level 4 :
Left child of 4 = null (-1)
Right child of 4 = 7
Left child of 5 = null (-1)
Right child of 5 = null (-1)
Left child of 6 = null (-1)
Right child of 6 = null (-1)

Level 5 :
Left child of 7 = null (-1)
Right child of 7 = null (-1)

The first not-null node(of the previous level) is treated as the parent of the first two nodes of the current level. The second not-null node (of the previous level) is treated as the parent node for the next two nodes of the current level and so on.

The input ends when all nodes at the last level are null(-1).

The sequence will be put together in a single line separated by a single space. Hence, for the above-depicted tree, the input will be given as:

1 2 3 4 -1 5 6 -1 7 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1

Output Format:

Print the boundary nodes of the given binary tree separated by single spaces.

Note :

You do not need to print anything; it has already been taken care of. Just implement the given function.

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Approaches

01 Approach

The boundary traversal of a binary tree can be broken down into 4 parts. These parts are given in the same order as they are present in the traversal-

The root node - The root node will always be our first node in the whole boundary traversal.
The left boundary - The left most nodes of the left subtree are also included in the boundary traversal, so we will process them next except for the leaf node as it will be processed in our next part. We can use recursion for this and traverse for only left child until a leaf node is encountered. If the left child is not present we recurse for the right child.
The leaf Nodes - The leaf nodes of the binary tree will be processed next. We can use a simple inorder traversal for that. Inorder traversal will make sure that we process leaf nodes from left to right.
The right boundary - The right most nodes of the right subtree will be processed at last in reverse order except for the leaf node as it is already processed in the previous part. For this, we can use recursion in a postorder manner and traverse for the right child only until we encounter a leaf node. If the right child is not present we will recurse for the left child. The postorder recursion will make sure that we traverse the right boundary in reverse order.

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