Pre- Order Traversal and

its Algorithm

By

Junaid Ali Siddiqui

Data s tr uct ur e
A data structure in computer
science is a way of storing data in a
computer so that it can be used
efficiently. It is an organization of
mathematical and logical concepts
of data. Often a carefully chosen
 Data structure

Non linear data

Linear data structure
structure
What is l in ear a nd n on-
li near data st ructures?
 Linear data structure
 A data structure is said to be linear if the
elements form a sequence for example Array
Linked list queue etc.
 Non linear data structure

Elements in a nonlinear data structure do not
form a sequence for example Tree Hash tree
Binary tree etc.
Bin ary tr ee
 In computer science, a binary tree is a
tree data structure in which each node
has at most two children. Typically the
child nodes are called left and right.
Typ es of b inary trees
 Complete binary tree
 A binary tree is said to be complete
binary tree if all its nodes has exactly two
Except the leave or terminal nodes, which
Have no child at all.
Ex tended b in ary tree

 A binary tree is said to be extended s

binary tree,if all its nodes has exactly
either two children or no child at all
Tr ave rsin g a tr ee

 tree-traversal refers to the process of

visiting (examining and/or updating) each
node in a tree data structure, exactly
once, in a systematic way. Such
traversals are classified by the order in
which the nodes are visited.
pre-o rder trave rsin g

 Its is one of the most important and

popular method of tree traversal.
The steps involved in pre order traversal
are as following.
1)Access the parent node
2)Access the left most child of parent node.
3)Access the right child of parent node.
 Preorder traversal sequence: F, B, A, D,
C, E, G, I, H (root, left, right)
Tr aver sa l
alg or ith m
PREORD(INFO,LEFT,RIGHT,ROOT)
A binary tree T is in memory .the algorithm
does a preorder traversal of T,
Applying an operation PROCESS to each of
its nodes.
An array stack is used to temporarily hold
the address of nodes.
1)[initially push NULL onto
STACK, and initialize PTR]
Set TOP=1,STACK[1]=NULL and
PTR=ROOT
2) Repeat step 3 to 5 while PTR !=
NULL
3)Apply PROCESS to INFO[PTR]
4)[right child?]
If RIGHT[PTR]!= NULL, then :[push
on STACK.]
Set TOP=TOP+1 ,and STACK
[TOP]=RIGHT[PTR]
[End of If structure]
1) [Left child?]
If LEFT[PTR] != LEFT[PTR],
Else : [pop from STACK]
Set PTR =STACK[TOP] and TOP =TOP-1
[end of If structure]
[End of step 2 loop]
6) EXIT
THE END