Article 86 - Data Structure - Tree - Preorder vs Postorder vs Inorder

Tree traversal is a popular topic in technical interview questions. Perfecting or mastering these techniques will definitely be to your advantage.

There are differences in the three types of tree traversals, each having a distinct purpose and real world application. We must understand how each type of traversal works.

Implementation

The structure of a binary tree node.

typedef struct Node {
    struct Node * leftChild;
    struct Node * rightChild;
    int content;
} Node;

Preorder

This form of tree traversal visits the current nodes before visiting either of the child or grand child nodes.

A function that performs preorder traversal.

void preorder( Node * tree ){
    if( !tree ){
        return;
    }

    tree->content;

    preorder( tree->leftChild );
    preorder( tree->rightChild );
}

Postorder

This form of tree traversal visits the child and all grand child nodes before visiting the current node.

A function that performs postorder traversal.

void postorder( Node * tree ){
    if( !tree ){
        return;
    }

    preorder( tree->leftChild );
    preorder( tree->rightChild );

    tree->content;
}

Inorder

This form of tree traversal visits one side of child node and all of the grand child nodes in that side before visiting the current node and then finally visiting all the child and grand child nodes on the other side.

A function that performs inorder traversal.

void inorder( Node * tree ){
    if( !tree ){
        return;
    }

    preorder( tree->leftChild );

    tree->content;

    preorder( tree->rightChild );
}

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