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Grokking the Coding Interview Patterns

Introduction to Tree Breadth-First Search

Explore tree breadth-first search traversal to understand how to efficiently explore nodes level by level starting from the root. Learn its core principles, implementation using a queue, and when to apply BFS to solve common tree problems such as minimum depth and level order traversal.

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About the pattern

A tree is a graph that contains the following properties:

  • It is undirectedA graph with edges that do not have a specific direction assigned to them..

  • It is acyclicA graph without cycles..

  • It is a connected graph where any two vertices are connected by exactly one path.

  • Its nodes can contain values of any data type.

The following key features set trees apart from other data structures, such as arrays or linked lists:

  • They organize data in a hierarchical manner with a root node at the top and child nodes branching out from it.

  • They are nonlinear, which means that the elements in a tree are not arranged sequentially but rather in a branching structure.

  • The time complexity for search and insert operations is typically O(log n)O(log n) in the case of balanced binary search trees, and O(n)O(n) in the case of general or unbalanced trees, where ...