CSCI H343 Data Structures Fall 2025

Binary Search Trees (BST)

Idea: use binary trees to implement the Set interface, such that doing a search for an element is like doing binary search.

interface Set<T> {
   void insert(T e);
   void remove();
   boolean member(T e); // aka contains
   ...
}

The Binary-Search-Tree Property: For every node x in the tree,

1. if node y is in the left subtree of x, then y.data < x.data, and
2. if node z is in the right subtree of x, then x.data < z.data.

We can also use BSTs to implement the Map interface (aka. “dictionary”).

interface Map<K,V> {
   V get(K key);
   V put(K key, V value);
   V remove(K key);
   boolean containsKey(K key);
}

Binary Search Tree and Node Classes

BinarySearchTree is like BinaryTree (has a root) but also has a lessThan predicate for comparing elements.

class Node<K> {
    K data;
    Node<K> left, right;
    // ...
}

class BinarySearchTree<K> implements Set<K> {
    Node<K> root;
    protected BiPredicate<K, K> lessThan;
	BinarySearchTree(BiPredicate<K, K> less) { lessThan = less; }
    // ...
}

find, search, and contains methods of BinarySearchTree

Book 4.3.1.

Example: Search for 6, 9, 15 in the following tree:

          8
        /   \
       /     \
      3       10
     / \        \
    1   6       14
       / \     /
      4   7   13

The find() method looks for the node with the specified key; if there is none, it returns the parent of where such a node would be.

protected Node<K> find(K key, Node<K> curr, Node<K> parent) {
	if (curr == null)
		return parent;
	else if (lessThan.test(key, curr.data))
		return find(key, curr.left, curr);
	else if (lessThan.test(curr.data, key))
		return find(key, curr.right, curr);
	else
		return curr;
}

The search() method looks for the specified key and returns the node if the key is found and otherwise returns null.

public Node<K> search(K key) {
	Node<K> n = find(key, root, null);
	if (n == null)
	  return null;
	else if (n.data.equals(key)))
	  return n;
	else
	  return null;
}

The contains() method returns true if the key is found and false otherwise.

public boolean contains(K key) {
	Node<K> p = search(key);
	return p != null;
}

What is the time complexity? O(h), where h is the height of the tree.

insert method of BinarySearchTree

Textbook 4.3.3.

Similarly we can perform insertions on BSTs. The insert() method adds the given key to the tree.

public void insert(K key) {
	root = insert_helper(key, root);
}

protected static Node<K> insert_helper(K key, Node<K> curr) {
	if (curr == null)
		return new Node<>(key, null, null);
	else if (lessThan.test(key, curr.data)) {
		curr.left = insert_helper(key, curr.left);
        return curr;
	} else if (lessThan.test(curr.data, key)) {
		curr.right = insert_helper(key, curr.right);
        return curr;
	} else {
		// duplicate; do nothing
        return curr;
	}
}

(There is an alternative implementation of insert that uses find.)

What is the time complexity? O(h), where h is the height of the tree.

remove method of BinarySearchTree

Book 4.3.4.

• Case 1: no left child: grandparent adopts the child

          o              o
          |              |
        z=o              A
           \       ==>
            A

• Case 2: no right child: grandparent adopts the child

            o            o
            |            |
          z=o            A
           /       ==>
          A

• Case 3: two children

             |
           z=o
            / \
           A   B

The main idea is to replace z with the node after z, which is the first node y in subtree B wrt. inorder traveral. We then recursively delete y from B.

Here is the first method of the Node class. The idea is to keep going left until you find a leaf node.

Node<K> first() {
    if (this.left == null)
        return this;
    return this.left.first();
}

Example of remove

Remove node 8 from the following tree

             8
           /   \
          5     10
         / \   / \
        2   6 9   11
       / \   \      \
      1   3   7      12
           \
            4

8 has two children, so we replace 8 with the first node in the subtree of 10, which is node 9.

             9
           /   \
          5     10
         / \     \
        2   6     11
       / \   \      \
      1   3   7      12
           \
            4

Implementation of remove

Implementation of remove (similar to book Figure 4.25):

public void remove(K key) {
	root = remove_helper(root, key);
}

private Node remove_helper(Node<K> curr, K key) {
	if (curr == null) {
		return null;
	} else if (lessThan.test(key, curr.data)) { // remove in left subtree
		curr.left = remove_helper(curr.left, key);
		return curr;
	} else if (lessThan.test(curr.data, key)) { // remove in right subtree
		curr.right = remove_helper(curr.right, key);
		return curr;
	} else {      // remove this node
		if (curr.left == null) {
			return curr.right;
		} else if (curr.right == null) {
			return curr.left;
		} else {   // two children, replace with first of right subtree
			Node<K> min = curr.right.first();
			curr.data = min.data;
			curr.right = remove_helper(curr.right, min.data);
			return curr;
		}
	}
}

Time complexity of remove

What is the time complexity? Let h be the height of the tree. The time complexity is O(h).

This site is open source. Improve this page.