How to find the closest element to a given key value in a binary search tree?

Question

Given a bst with integer values as keys how do I find the closest node to that key in a bst ? The BST is represented using a object of nodes (Java). Closest will be for eg 4

Answer 1

Below one works with different samples which I have.

public Node findNearest(Node root, int k) {
    if (root == null) {
        return null;
    }
    int minDiff = 0;
    Node minAt = root;
    minDiff = Math.abs(k - root.data);

    while (root != null) {
        if (k == root.data) {
            return root;
        }
        if (k < root.data) {
            minAt = updateMin(root, k, minDiff, minAt);
            root = root.left;
        } else if (k > root.data) {
            minAt = updateMin(root, k, minDiff, minAt);
            root = root.right;
        }

    }
    return minAt;
}

private Node updateMin(Node root, int k, int minDiff, Node minAt) {
    int curDif;
    curDif = Math.abs(k - root.data);
    if (curDif < minDiff) {
        minAt = root;
    }
    return minAt;
}