Trees consist of nodes with parent and child relationships from "summary" of Data Structures and Algorithms in Python by Michael T. Goodrich,Roberto Tamassia,Michael H. Goldwasser
In a tree data structure, each element is called a node, and each node has a parent node and zero or more children nodes. The topmost node in a tree is called the root node, which has no parent. Nodes that have the same parent are called siblings. The root node serves as a common starting point for traversing the tree, and each child node is connected to its parent via a single edge. The nodes that do not have any children are called leaf nodes, while internal nodes have one or more children. The relationship between parent and child nodes forms the hierarchical structure of a tree, with each child node having a unique parent. This structure allows for efficient organization and retrieval of data, as well as easy navigation through the tree. By following the parent-child relationships, one can traverse the tree from the root node to any desired leaf node or internal node. In addition to parent and child relationships, trees can have other properties such as depth, height, and level. The depth of a node is the number of edges from the root node to that particular node, while the height of a node is the longest path from that node to a leaf node. The level of a node is its depth plus one, with the root node being at level one. Furthermore, trees can be classified based on their branching factor, which is the maximum number of children that a node can have. A tree with a branching factor of two is known as a binary tree, while a tree with a branching factor of more than two is called a multiway tree. Binary trees are particularly common due to their simplicity and efficiency in various applications.- The concept of trees consisting of nodes with parent and child relationships provides a powerful and flexible way to structure and organize data in a hierarchical manner. By understanding the relationships between nodes within a tree, one can effectively perform operations such as insertion, deletion, and traversal, making trees a fundamental data structure in computer science and programming.
