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

Here is the working solution in java which uses the characteristics of BST and additional integer to store minimum difference

public class ClosestValueBinaryTree {
        static int closestValue;

        public static void closestValueBST(Node22 node, int target) {
            if (node == null) {
                return;
            }
            if (node.data - target == 0) {
                closestValue = node.data;
                return;
            }
            if (Math.abs(node.data - target) < Math.abs(closestValue - target)) {
                closestValue = node.data;
            }
            if (node.data - target < 0) {
                closestValueBST(node.right, target);
            } else {
                closestValueBST(node.left, target);
            }
        }
    }

Run time complexity - O(logN)

Space time complexity - O(1)