tree qustion

[Former Member]

hi,

what is the definition for child and leaf in tree ?

Regards

[ferry_lianto]

Hi,

A tree structure is an algorithm for placing and locating files (called records or keys) in a database. The algorithm finds data by repeatedly making choices at decision points called nodes. A node can have as few as two branches (also called children), or as many as several dozen. The structure is straightforward, but in terms of the number of nodes and children, a tree can be gigantic.

In a tree, records are stored in locations called leaves. This name derives from the fact that records always exist at end points; there is nothing beyond them. The starting point is called the root. The maximum number of children per node is called the order of the tree. The maximum number of access operations required to reach the desired record is called the depth. In some trees, the order is the same at every node and the depth is the same for every record. This type of structure is said to be balanced. Other trees have varying numbers of children per node, and different records might lie at different depths. In that case, the tree is said to have an unbalanced or asymmetrical structure.

In a practical tree, there can be thousands, millions, or billions of nodes, children, leaves, and records. Not every leaf necessarily contains a record, but more than half do. A leaf that does not contain data is called a null.

Regards,

Ferry Lianto

[Former Member]

Hi Tal,

<b>Leaf Node: </b>A leaf node is a node of a tree data structure that has zero child nodes. Often, leaf nodes are the nodes farthest from the root node. In the graph theory tree, a leaf node is a vertex of degree 1 other than the root (except when the tree has only one vertex; then the root, too, is a leaf). Every tree has at least one leaf.

<b>Child Node: </b> A node may contain a value or a condition or represents a separate data structure or a tree of its own. Each node in a tree has zero or more child nodes, which are below it in the tree (by convention, trees grow down, not up as they do in nature). A node that has a child is called the child's parent node (or ancestor node, or superior). A node has at most one parent. The height of a node is the length of the longest downward path to a leaf from that node. The height of the root is the height of the tree. The depth of a node is the length of the path to its root (i.e., its root path).

Thanks,

Vinay