A binary tree is a tree data structure in which each node has at most two children, which are referred to as the left child and the right child. The topmost node in a binary tree is called the root, and nodes with no children are called leaves.
The structure of a binary tree is such that each node has a value or data, and it may have zero, one, or two child nodes. The left subtree of a node contains only nodes with values less than the node's value, and the right subtree contains only nodes with values greater than the node's value. This ordering property makes binary trees useful for efficient searching and sorting operations.
Here are some key terms associated with binary trees:
- Root: The topmost node in the tree.
- Parent: A node in the tree that has one or more child nodes.
- Child: A node in the tree that has a parent node.
- Leaf: A node in the tree that has no children.
- Subtree: A tree formed by a node and all its descendants.
- Height: The length of the longest path from a node to a leaf. The height of the tree is the height of the root.
- Depth: The length of the path from the root to a particular node.