How to Serialize Binary Tree

Question

I went to an interview today where I was asked to serialize a binary tree. I implemented an array-based approach where the children of node i (numbering in level-order trave

Answer 1

Using pre order traversal, serialize Binary tree. Use the same pre order traversal to deserialize tree. Be careful about the edge cases. Here null nodes are represented by "#"

public static String serialize(TreeNode root){
            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
            serialize(root, sb);
            return sb.toString();
        }

    private static void serialize(TreeNode node, StringBuilder sb){
        if (node == null) {
            sb.append("# ");
        } else {
            sb.append(node.val + " ");
            serialize(node.left, sb);
            serialize(node.right, sb);
        }
    }

    public static TreeNode deserialize(String s){
        if (s == null || s.length() == 0) return null;
        StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer(s, " ");
        return deserialize(st);
    }

    private static TreeNode deserialize(StringTokenizer st){
        if (!st.hasMoreTokens())
            return null;
        String val = st.nextToken();
        if (val.equals("#"))
            return null;
        TreeNode root = new TreeNode(Integer.parseInt(val));
        root.left = deserialize(st);
        root.right = deserialize(st);
        return root;
    }