How to implement a binary tree?

Question

Here is my simple recursive implementation of binary search tree.

#!/usr/bin/python

class Node:
    def __init__(self, val):
        self.l = None
        self.r = None
        self.v = val

class Tree:
    def __init__(self):
        self.root = None

    def getRoot(self):
        return self.root

    def add(self, val):
        if self.root is None:
            self.root = Node(val)
        else:
            self._add(val, self.root)

    def _add(self, val, node):
        if val < node.v:
            if node.l is not None:
                self._add(val, node.l)
            else:
                node.l = Node(val)
        else:
            if node.r is not None:
                self._add(val, node.r)
            else:
                node.r = Node(val)

    def find(self, val):
        if self.root is not None:
            return self._find(val, self.root)
        else:
            return None

    def _find(self, val, node):
        if val == node.v:
            return node
        elif (val < node.v and node.l is not None):
            return self._find(val, node.l)
        elif (val > node.v and node.r is not None):
            return self._find(val, node.r)

    def deleteTree(self):
        # garbage collector will do this for us. 
        self.root = None

    def printTree(self):
        if self.root is not None:
            self._printTree(self.root)

    def _printTree(self, node):
        if node is not None:
            self._printTree(node.l)
            print(str(node.v) + ' ')
            self._printTree(node.r)

#     3
# 0     4
#   2      8
tree = Tree()
tree.add(3)
tree.add(4)
tree.add(0)
tree.add(8)
tree.add(2)
tree.printTree()
print(tree.find(3).v)
print(tree.find(10))
tree.deleteTree()
tree.printTree()

[What you need for interviews] A Node class is the sufficient data structure to represent a binary tree.

(While other answers are mostly correct, they are not required for a binary tree: no need to extend object class, no need to be a BST, no need to import deque).

class Node:

    def __init__(self, value = None):
        self.left  = None
        self.right = None
        self.value = value

Here is an example of a tree:

n1 = Node(1)
n2 = Node(2)
n3 = Node(3)
n1.left  = n2
n1.right = n3

In this example n1 is the root of the tree having n2, n3 as its children.

# simple binary tree
# in this implementation, a node is inserted between an existing node and the root


class BinaryTree():

    def __init__(self,rootid):
      self.left = None
      self.right = None
      self.rootid = rootid

    def getLeftChild(self):
        return self.left
    def getRightChild(self):
        return self.right
    def setNodeValue(self,value):
        self.rootid = value
    def getNodeValue(self):
        return self.rootid

    def insertRight(self,newNode):
        if self.right == None:
            self.right = BinaryTree(newNode)
        else:
            tree = BinaryTree(newNode)
            tree.right = self.right
            self.right = tree

    def insertLeft(self,newNode):
        if self.left == None:
            self.left = BinaryTree(newNode)
        else:
            tree = BinaryTree(newNode)
            tree.left = self.left
            self.left = tree


def printTree(tree):
        if tree != None:
            printTree(tree.getLeftChild())
            print(tree.getNodeValue())
            printTree(tree.getRightChild())



# test tree

def testTree():
    myTree = BinaryTree("Maud")
    myTree.insertLeft("Bob")
    myTree.insertRight("Tony")
    myTree.insertRight("Steven")
    printTree(myTree)

Read more about it Here:-This is a very simple implementation of a binary tree.

This is a nice tutorial with questions in between

I can't help but notice that most answers here are implementing a Binary Search Tree. Binary Search Tree != Binary Tree.

• A Binary Search Tree has a very specific property: for any node X, X's key is larger than the key of any descendent of its left child, and smaller than the key of any descendant of its right child.

• A Binary Tree imposes no such restriction. A Binary Tree is simply a data structure with a 'key' element, and two children, say 'left' and 'right'.

• A Tree is an even more general case of a Binary Tree where each node can have an arbitrary number of children. Typically, each node has a 'children' element which is of type list/array.

Now, to answer the OP's question, I am including a full implementation of a Binary Tree in Python. The underlying data structure storing each BinaryTreeNode is a dictionary, given it offers optimal O(1) lookups. I've also implemented depth-first and breadth-first traversals. These are very common operations performed on trees.

from collections import deque

class BinaryTreeNode:
    def __init__(self, key, left=None, right=None):
        self.key = key
        self.left = left
        self.right = right

    def __repr__(self):
        return "%s l: (%s) r: (%s)" % (self.key, self.left, self.right)

    def __eq__(self, other):
        if self.key == other.key and \
            self.right == other.right and \
                self.left == other.left:
            return True
        else:
            return False

class BinaryTree:
    def __init__(self, root_key=None):
        # maps from BinaryTreeNode key to BinaryTreeNode instance.
        # Thus, BinaryTreeNode keys must be unique.
        self.nodes = {}
        if root_key is not None:
            # create a root BinaryTreeNode
            self.root = BinaryTreeNode(root_key)
            self.nodes[root_key] = self.root

    def add(self, key, left_key=None, right_key=None):
        if key not in self.nodes:
            # BinaryTreeNode with given key does not exist, create it
            self.nodes[key] = BinaryTreeNode(key)
        # invariant: self.nodes[key] exists

        # handle left child
        if left_key is None:
            self.nodes[key].left = None
        else:
            if left_key not in self.nodes:
                self.nodes[left_key] = BinaryTreeNode(left_key)
            # invariant: self.nodes[left_key] exists
            self.nodes[key].left = self.nodes[left_key]

        # handle right child
        if right_key == None:
            self.nodes[key].right = None
        else:
            if right_key not in self.nodes:
                self.nodes[right_key] = BinaryTreeNode(right_key)
            # invariant: self.nodes[right_key] exists
            self.nodes[key].right = self.nodes[right_key]

    def remove(self, key):
        if key not in self.nodes:
            raise ValueError('%s not in tree' % key)
        # remove key from the list of nodes
        del self.nodes[key]
        # if node removed is left/right child, update parent node
        for k in self.nodes:
            if self.nodes[k].left and self.nodes[k].left.key == key:
                self.nodes[k].left = None
            if self.nodes[k].right and self.nodes[k].right.key == key:
                self.nodes[k].right = None
        return True

    def _height(self, node):
        if node is None:
            return 0
        else:
            return 1 + max(self._height(node.left), self._height(node.right))

    def height(self):
        return self._height(self.root)

    def size(self):
        return len(self.nodes)

    def __repr__(self):
        return str(self.traverse_inorder(self.root))

    def bfs(self, node):
        if not node or node not in self.nodes:
            return
        reachable = []    
        q = deque()
        # add starting node to queue
        q.append(node)
        while len(q):
            visit = q.popleft()
            # add currently visited BinaryTreeNode to list
            reachable.append(visit)
            # add left/right children as needed
            if visit.left:
                q.append(visit.left)
            if visit.right:
                q.append(visit.right)
        return reachable

    # visit left child, root, then right child
    def traverse_inorder(self, node, reachable=None):
        if not node or node.key not in self.nodes:
            return
        if reachable is None:
            reachable = []
        self.traverse_inorder(node.left, reachable)
        reachable.append(node.key)
        self.traverse_inorder(node.right, reachable)
        return reachable

    # visit left and right children, then root
    # root of tree is always last to be visited
    def traverse_postorder(self, node, reachable=None):
        if not node or node.key not in self.nodes:
            return
        if reachable is None:
            reachable = []
        self.traverse_postorder(node.left, reachable)
        self.traverse_postorder(node.right, reachable)
        reachable.append(node.key)
        return reachable

    # visit root, left, then right children
    # root is always visited first
    def traverse_preorder(self, node, reachable=None):
        if not node or node.key not in self.nodes:
            return
        if reachable is None:
            reachable = []
        reachable.append(node.key)
        self.traverse_preorder(node.left, reachable)
        self.traverse_preorder(node.right, reachable)
        return reachable