Last Updated: 8 Oct, 2020

Reverse Level Order Traversal

Moderate
Asked in companies
AdobeMicrosoftAmazon

Problem statement

You have been given a Binary Tree of integers. You are supposed to return the reverse of the level order traversal.

For example:
For the given binary tree

Example

The reverse level order traversal will be {7,6,5,4,3,2,1}.
Input Format:
The first 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 would be :

Example

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).
Note :
The above format was just to provide clarity on how the input is formed for a given tree. 
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 all the nodes in reverse level order traversal separated by a single space.
Note :
You do not need to print anything; it has already been taken care of. Just implement the given function.
Constraints:
0 <= N <= 5 * 10^5
0 <= data <= 10^5 and data != -1

Where ‘N’ is the total number of nodes in the binary tree, and 'data' is the value of the binary tree node.

Time Limit: 1 sec

Approaches

01 Approach

Our intuition is first to store all the nodes into the vector, let’s say ‘OUTPUT’ while traversing in level by level in the tree. 

 

In level order traversal, we will be going from left to right and top to bottom. So we have stored all the nodes in the left to right and top to bottom manner into the ‘OUTPUT’. But our desired traversal is “from right to left and bottom to top”. So if we reverse our stored nodes, i.e. ‘OUTPUT’ then left to right will change into the right to left and top to bottom will change into the bottom to top. 

 

The steps are as follows:

  1. We are going to use level order traversal, so push the root into the queue. And iterate through the queue until it becomes empty.
  2. Push all the children of all the root nodes of the current level into the queue. And also, store all the root nodes for the current level into the ‘OUTPUT’.
  3. Reverse the ‘OUTPUT’ and then return it.