Three types of traversing methods for binary trees in data structures.
There are three ways to traverse a binary tree: pre-order traversal, in-order traversal, and post-order traversal.
- Preorder Traversal: First visit the root node, then recursively traverse the left subtree in preorder, followed by recursively traversing the right subtree in preorder. The order of traversal is root-left-right.
- Inorder Traversal: Recursively traverse the left subtree in order, then visit the root node, and finally recursively traverse the right subtree. The traversal order is Left-Root-Right.
- Postorder Traversal: First recursively traverse the left subtree, then recursively traverse the right subtree, and finally visit the root node. The order of traversal is left-right-root.
All three traversal methods can be implemented using either recursion or iteration. Recursion is relatively simple, while iteration requires the use of a stack.
In addition, there is also a level order traversal method, where we visit the nodes of a binary tree from top to bottom, left to right, layer by layer. Level order traversal requires the use of a queue for implementation.