What is the space complexity of a recursive depth-first search (DFS) on a binary

Practice Questions

Q1
What is the space complexity of a recursive depth-first search (DFS) on a binary tree?
  1. O(1)
  2. O(n)
  3. O(log n)
  4. O(n^2)

Questions & Step-by-Step Solutions

What is the space complexity of a recursive depth-first search (DFS) on a binary tree?
  • Step 1: Understand what space complexity means. It refers to the amount of memory space required by an algorithm as a function of the input size.
  • Step 2: Recognize that a recursive depth-first search (DFS) uses a call stack to keep track of function calls.
  • Step 3: In a binary tree, each node can have up to two children. The depth of the tree affects how many function calls are on the stack at once.
  • Step 4: In the worst case, if the binary tree is skewed (like a linked list), the maximum depth of the tree can be equal to the number of nodes, n.
  • Step 5: When the tree is skewed, the recursion stack can grow to hold all n nodes, leading to a space complexity of O(n).
  • Step 6: In a balanced binary tree, the maximum depth is log(n), but we focus on the worst case for space complexity.
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