How to determine if binary tree is balanced?

Question

It\'s been a while from those school years. Got a job as IT specialist at a hospital. Trying to move to do some actual programming now. I\'m working on binary trees now, a

Answer 1

/* Returns true if Tree is balanced, i.e. if the difference between the longest path and the shortest path from the root to a leaf node is no more than than 1. This difference can be changed to any arbitrary positive number. */
boolean isBalanced(Node root) {
    if (longestPath(root) - shortestPath(root) > 1)
        return false;
    else
        return true;
}


int longestPath(Node root) {
    if (root == null);
        return 0;
    else {
        int leftPathLength = longestPath(root.left);
        int rightPathLength = longestPath(root.right);
        if (leftPathLength >= rightPathLength)
            return leftPathLength + 1;
        else
            return rightPathLength + 1;
    }
}

int shortestPath(Node root) {
    if (root == null);
        return 0;
    else {
        int leftPathLength = shortestPath(root.left);
        int rightPathLength = shortestPath(root.right);
        if (leftPathLength <= rightPathLength)
            return leftPathLength + 1;
        else
            return rightPathLength + 1;
    }
}

Answer 2

Here is a complete worked out tested solution in C# (sorry I'm no java dev) (just copy paste in console app). I know that definition of balanced varies so not everyone may like my test results but please just look at the slightly different approach of checking depth/height in a recursive loop and exiting on the first mismatch without saving node height/level/depth on each node (only maintaining it in a function call).

using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace BalancedTree
{
    class Program
    {
        public static void Main()
        {
            //Value Gathering
            Console.WriteLine(RunTreeTests(new[] { 0 }));
            Console.WriteLine(RunTreeTests(new int[] { }));

            Console.WriteLine(RunTreeTests(new[] { 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, -1, -4, -3, -2 }));
            Console.WriteLine(RunTreeTests(null));
            Console.WriteLine(RunTreeTests(new[] { 10, 8, 12, 8, 4, 14, 8, 10 }));
            Console.WriteLine(RunTreeTests(new int[] { 20, 10, 30, 5, 15, 25, 35, 3, 8, 12, 17, 22, 27, 32, 37 }));

            Console.ReadKey();
        }

        static string RunTreeTests(int[] scores)
        {
            if (scores == null || scores.Count() == 0)
            {
                return null;
            }

            var tree = new BinarySearchTree();

            foreach (var score in scores)
            {
                tree.InsertScore(score);
            }

            Console.WriteLine(tree.IsBalanced());

            var sb = tree.GetBreadthWardsTraversedNodes();

            return sb.ToString(0, sb.Length - 1);
        }
    }

    public class Node
    {
        public int Value { get; set; }
        public int Count { get; set; }
        public Node RightChild { get; set; }
        public Node LeftChild { get; set; }
        public Node(int value)
        {
            Value = value;
            Count = 1;
        }

        public override string ToString()
        {
            return Value + ":" + Count;
        }

        public bool IsLeafNode()
        {
            return LeftChild == null && RightChild == null;
        }

        public void AddValue(int value)
        {
            if (value == Value)
            {
                Count++;
            }
            else
            {
                if (value > Value)
                {
                    if (RightChild == null)
                    {
                        RightChild = new Node(value);
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        RightChild.AddValue(value);
                    }
                }
                else
                {
                    if (LeftChild == null)
                    {
                        LeftChild = new Node(value);
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        LeftChild.AddValue(value);
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }

    public class BinarySearchTree
    {
        public Node Root { get; set; }

        public void InsertScore(int score)
        {
            if (Root == null)
            {
                Root = new Node(score);
            }
            else
            {
                Root.AddValue(score);
            }
        }

        private static int _heightCheck;
        public bool IsBalanced()
        {
            _heightCheck = 0;
            var height = 0;
            if (Root == null) return true;
            var result = CheckHeight(Root, ref height);
            height--;
            return (result && height == 0);
        }

        private static bool CheckHeight(Node node, ref int height)
        {
            height++;
            if (node.LeftChild == null)
            {
                if (node.RightChild != null) return false;
                if (_heightCheck != 0) return _heightCheck == height;
                _heightCheck = height;
                return true;
            }
            if (node.RightChild == null)
            {
                return false;
            }

            var leftCheck = CheckHeight(node.LeftChild, ref height);
            if (!leftCheck) return false;
            height--;
            var rightCheck = CheckHeight(node.RightChild, ref height);
            if (!rightCheck) return false;
            height--;
            return true;
        }


        public StringBuilder GetBreadthWardsTraversedNodes()
        {
            if (Root == null) return null;
            var traversQueue = new StringBuilder();
            traversQueue.Append(Root + ",");
            if (Root.IsLeafNode()) return traversQueue;
            TraversBreadthWards(traversQueue, Root);
            return traversQueue;
        }

        private static void TraversBreadthWards(StringBuilder sb, Node node)
        {
            if (node == null) return;
            sb.Append(node.LeftChild + ",");
            sb.Append(node.RightChild + ",");
            if (node.LeftChild != null && !node.LeftChild.IsLeafNode())
            {
                TraversBreadthWards(sb, node.LeftChild);
            }
            if (node.RightChild != null && !node.RightChild.IsLeafNode())
            {
                TraversBreadthWards(sb, node.RightChild);
            }
        }
    }
}

Answer 3

What balanced means depends a bit on the structure at hand. For instance, A B-Tree cannot have nodes more than a certain depth from the root, or less for that matter, all data lives at a fixed depth from the root, but it can be out of balance if the distribution of leaves to leaves-but-one nodes is uneven. Skip-lists Have no notion at all of balance, relying instead on probability to achieve decent performance. Fibonacci trees purposefully fall out of balance, postponing the rebalance to achieve superior asymptotic performance in exchange for occasionally longer updates. AVL and Red-Black trees attach metadata to each node to attain a depth-balance invariant.

All of these structures and more are present in the standard libraries of most common programming systems (except python, RAGE!). Implementing one or two is good programming practice, but its probably not a good use of time to roll your own for production, unless your problem has some peculiar performance need not satisfied by any off-the-shelf collections.

Answer 4

This is being made way more complicated than it actually is.

The algorithm is as follows:

1. Let A = depth of the highest-level node

2. Let B = depth of the lowest-level node

3. If abs(A-B) <= 1, then the tree is balanced

Answer 5

public int height(Node node){
    if(node==null)return 0;
    else{
        int l=height(node.leftChild);
        int r=height(node.rightChild);
       return(l>r?l+1:r+1);

}}
public boolean balanced(Node n){

    int l= height(n.leftChild);
    int r= height(n.rightChild);

    System.out.println(l + " " +r);
    if(Math.abs(l-r)>1)
        return false;
    else 
        return true;
    }

Answer 6

    static boolean isBalanced(Node root) {
    //check in the depth of left and right subtree
    int diff = depth(root.getLeft()) - depth(root.getRight());
    if (diff < 0) {
        diff = diff * -1;
    }
    if (diff > 1) {
        return false;
    }
    //go to child nodes
    else {
        if (root.getLeft() == null && root.getRight() == null) {
            return true;
        } else if (root.getLeft() == null) {
            if (depth(root.getRight()) > 1) {
                return false;
            } else {
                return true;
            }
        } else if (root.getRight() == null) {
            if (depth(root.getLeft()) > 1) {
                return false;
            } else {
                return true;
            }
        } else if (root.getLeft() != null && root.getRight() != null && isBalanced(root.getLeft()) && isBalanced(root.getRight())) {
            return true;
        } else {
            return false;
        }
    }
}