What is the primary purpose of a stack in the context of binary tree traversal?
Practice Questions
Q1
What is the primary purpose of a stack in the context of binary tree traversal?
To store tree nodes
To reverse the order of traversal
To keep track of visited nodes
To implement recursion
Questions & Step-by-Step Solutions
What is the primary purpose of a stack in the context of binary tree traversal?
Step 1: Understand what a binary tree is. A binary tree is a data structure where each node has at most two children.
Step 2: Learn about tree traversal. Tree traversal means visiting all the nodes in the tree in a specific order.
Step 3: Know that there are different types of tree traversal, such as depth-first and breadth-first. Depth-first means going deep into the tree before backtracking.
Step 4: Recognize that recursion is a common way to perform depth-first traversal, where a function calls itself to visit nodes.
Step 5: Understand that a stack can be used to mimic this recursive behavior without actually using function calls.
Step 6: Realize that by using a stack, we can keep track of nodes to visit next, allowing us to explore the tree in depth-first order.
