Tree Terminology
- tree: an undirected, acyclic, connected graph with one specially
designated node (the root node)
- parent node: the node adjacent to a given node on the path to the
root node
- child node: a node adjacent to a node (its parent) which is closer
to the root node
- internal node: a node with a child
- leaf node: a childless node
- depth of a node: the length of the path from the node to the root
- depth (or height!) of the tree: the maximum node depth
- forest: a bunch of trees, of course!
- binary tree: a tree in which a root node has two children but no
parent, each internal node has a single parent and two children, and leaf nodes
have a single parent but no children.
- left child: the node to the left of the parent in a binary tree
- right child: the node to the right of the parent in a binary tree
- full binary tree: all leaf nodes are of equal depth, and all
parents have two children.
- complete binary tree: an almost-full binary tree (all leaves are of
depth n or n-1, where n is the depth of the tree).
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aelon@sph.umich.edu