Learn and practice the Tree Depth-First Search, Tree Breadth-First Search, and Backtracking patterns to solve coding interview problems.

Grokking the Blind 75 Problems in Python

In this module, we’ll learn to work with the tree data structure and explore the use of the backtracking algorithm. Trees play a pivotal role in organizing hierarchical data, optimizing searches, and solving complex problems. We’ll learn to choose the appropriate tree for a given problem and apply the more appropriate of the two major traversal techniques, breadth-first or depth-first, to solve it. We use backtracking when seeking optimal solutions in a scenario where no possibility may be left unexplored. We’ll gain experience with using tree depth-first search to implement backtracking when the solution space is represented as a tree, and we’ll need to exhaustively explore all possible solutions. We’ll also learn to implement backtracking to solve problems where the solution space is represented using other data structures.

Exploring the Solution Space

Tackle additional problems using the Backtracking pattern.

Tree Breadth-first Search

Tree Depth-first Search

Backtracking

Conclusion

Additional Resources on Backtracking