How to flatten tree via LINQ?

Question

So I have simple tree:

class MyNode
{
 public MyNode Parent;
 public IEnumerable Elements;
 int group = 1;
}

I have a I

Answer 1

The problem with the accepted answer is that it is inefficient if the tree is deep. If the tree is very deep then it blows the stack. You can solve the problem by using an explicit stack:

public static IEnumerable Traverse(this MyNode root)
{
    var stack = new Stack();
    stack.Push(root);
    while(stack.Count > 0)
    {
        var current = stack.Pop();
        yield return current;
        foreach(var child in current.Elements)
            stack.Push(child);
    }
}

Assuming n nodes in a tree of height h and a branching factor considerably less than n, this method is O(1) in stack space, O(h) in heap space and O(n) in time. The other algorithm given is O(h) in stack, O(1) in heap and O(nh) in time. If the branching factor is small compared to n then h is between O(lg n) and O(n), which illustrates that the naïve algorithm can use a dangerous amount of stack and a large amount of time if h is close to n.

Now that we have a traversal, your query is straightforward:

root.Traverse().Where(item=>item.group == 1);