How to avoid this stackoverflow exception?

Question

Here is the situation, I am developing a binary search tree and in each node of the tree I intend to store the height of its own for further balancing the tree during avl tree formation. Previously I had an iterative approach to calculate the height of a node during balancing the tree like the following.

(The following code belongs to a class called AVLTree<T> which is a child class of BinarySearchTree<T>)

protected virtual int GetBalance(BinaryTreeNode<T> node)
        {
            if(node != null)
            {
                IEnumerable<BinaryTreeNode<T>> leftSubtree = null, righSubtree = null;

                if (node.Left != null)
                    leftSubtree = node.Left.ToEnumerable(BinaryTreeTraversalType.InOrder);

                if (node.Right != null)
                    righSubtree = node.Right.ToEnumerable(BinaryTreeTraversalType.InOrder);


                var leftHeight = leftSubtree.IsNullOrEmpty() ? 0 : leftSubtree.Max(x => x.Depth) - node.Depth;
                var righHeight = righSubtree.IsNullOrEmpty() ? 0 : righSubtree.Max(x => x.Depth) - node.Depth;


                return righHeight - leftHeight;
            }
            return 0;            
        }

But it was incurring a lot of performance overhead.

Performance of an AVL Tree in C#

So I went for storing the height value in each node at the time of insertion in the BinarySearchTree<T>. Now during balancing I am able to avoid this iteration and I am gaining the desired performance in AVLTree<T>.

But now the problem is if I try to insert a large number of data say 1-50000 sequentially in BinarySearchTree<T> (without balancing it), I am getting StackoverflowException. I am providing the code which is causing it. Can you please help me to find a solution which will avoid this exception and also not compromise with the performance in its child class AVLTree<T>?

public class BinaryTreeNode<T>
    {
        private BinaryTreeNode<T> _left, _right;
        private int _height;
        
        public T Value {get; set; }
        public BinaryTreeNode<T> Parent;
        public int Depth {get; set; }
        
        public BinaryTreeNode()
        {}
        
        public BinaryTreeNode(T data)
        {
            Value = data;
        }
        
        public BinaryTreeNode<T> Left
        {
            get { return _left; }
            set
            {
                _left = value;
                if (_left != null)
                {
                    _left.Depth = Depth + 1;    
                    _left.Parent = this;
                }                
                UpdateHeight();
            }
        }

        public BinaryTreeNode<T> Right
        {
            get { return _right; }
            set
            {
                _right = value;
                if (_right != null)
                {
                    _right.Depth = Depth + 1;
                    _right.Parent = this;
                }
                UpdateHeight();
            }
        }
        
        public int Height
        {
            get { return _height; }
            protected internal set
            {
                _height = value;
                if (Parent != null) {
                    Parent.UpdateHeight();
                }               
            }
        }
        
        private void UpdateHeight()
        {
            if (Left == null && Right == null) {
                return;
            }
            if(Left != null && Right != null)
            {
                if (Left.Height > Right.Height)
                    Height = Left.Height + 1;
                else
                    Height = Right.Height + 1;
            }
            else if(Left == null)
                Height = Right.Height + 1;
            else
                Height = Left.Height + 1;
        }
        
    }

---

public class BinarySearchTree<T>
    {
        private readonly Comparer<T> _comparer = Comparer<T>.Default;
        
        public BinarySearchTree()
        {
        }
        
        public BinaryTreeNode<T> Root {get; set;}
        
        public virtual void Add(T value)
        {
            var n = new BinaryTreeNode<T>(value);
            int result;

            BinaryTreeNode<T> current = Root, parent = null;
            while (current != null)
            {
                result = _comparer.Compare(current.Value, value);
                if (result == 0)
                {
                    parent = current;
                    current = current.Left;
                }
                if (result > 0)
                {
                    parent = current;
                    current = current.Left;
                }
                else if (result < 0)
                {
                    parent = current;
                    current = current.Right;
                }
            }
            
            if (parent == null)
                Root = n;
            else
            {
                result = _comparer.Compare(parent.Value, value);
                if (result > 0)
                    parent.Left = n;
                else
                    parent.Right = n;
            }
        }
    }

I am getting the StackoverflowException in calculating the height at the following line

if (Parent != null) {
                    Parent.UpdateHeight();
                } 

in the Height property of BinaryTreeNode<T> class. If possible please suggest me some work around.

BTW, thanks a lot for your attention to read such a long question :)

Answer 1

When you add a node you compute the height by iterating over all the parent nodes recursively. A .NET process has limited stack space and given a big tree you will consume all stack space and get a StackOverflowException. You can change the recursion into an iteration to avoid consuming stack space. Other languages like functional languages are able to recurse without consuming stack space by using a technique called tail recursion. However, in C# you will have to manually modify your code.

Here are modified versions of Height and UpdateHeight in BinaryTreeNode<T> that doesn't use recursion:

public int Height {
  get { return _height; }
  private set { _height = value; }
}

void UpdateHeight() {
  var leftHeight = Left != null ? Left.Height + 1 : 0;
  var rightHeight = Right != null ? Right.Height + 1 : 0;
  var height = Math.Max(leftHeight, rightHeight);
  var node = this;
  while (node != null) {
    node.Height = height;
    height += 1;
    node = node.Parent;
  }
}