Deletion in a Binary Tree

Question

I've been trying to implement Deletion in a Binary Tree. I know that the three steps are:

• Identifying the node to be deleted and the deepest node.
• Replacing its data with the data of the deepest node.
• Deleting the deepest node.

I had to traverse the entire tree to find the deepest node. In order to delete that node, I need to find its parent. Is there any other way to find its parent without having to traverse the entire tree the second time?

This is my code.

tnode* searchNode(Tree &T, int data) {
    tnode* temp = nullptr;
    Queue Q;

    if(!T.root)
        return nullptr;

    enqueue(Q, T.root);
    while(!isEmptyQueue(Q)) {
        temp = dequeue(Q);

        if(temp->data == data) {
            return temp;
        }
        if(temp->left) {
            enqueue(Q, temp->left);
        }
        if(temp->right) {
            enqueue(Q, temp->right);
        }
    }
    return nullptr;
}

tnode* findDeepestNode(Tree &T) {
    tnode *temp = nullptr;
    Queue Q;

    if(!T.root)
        return nullptr;

    enqueue(Q, T.root);
    while(!isEmptyQueue(Q)) {
        temp = dequeue(Q);

        if(temp->left)
            enqueue(Q, temp->left);

        if(temp->right)
            enqueue(Q, temp->right);
    }
    return temp;
}

void removeNode(Tree &T, tnode *search) {
    tnode *temp = nullptr;
    tnode *del = nullptr;
    Queue Q;

    if(!T.root || T.root == search)
        return;

    enqueue(Q, T.root);
    while (!isEmptyQueue(Q)) {
        temp = dequeue(Q);

        if(temp->left) {
            if(temp->left == search) {
                del = temp->left;
                temp->left = nullptr;
                delete del;
                return;
            }
            else
                enqueue(Q, temp->left);
        }

        if(temp->right) {
            if(temp->right == search) {
                del = temp->right;
                temp->right = nullptr;
                delete del;
                return;
            }
            else
                enqueue(Q, temp->right);
        } 
    }
    return;
}

void deleteNode(Tree &T, int data) {
    tnode *search = searchNode(T, data);
    tnode *deepestnode = findDeepestNode(T);

    if(search) {
        search->data = deepestnode->data;
        removeNode(T, deepestnode);
    }
}

I've just started learning Data Structures. The code I wrote seems way too long. How can I shorten this code? Also please correct me if I'm following any bad coding practices.

Answer 1

In this function only, you can find the deepest node as well as parent node too by passing a double pointer to the deepest node and it's parent:

tnode* searchNode(Tree &T, int data, tnode** deepest, tnode **parent) {
    tnode* temp = nullptr;
    tnode* searchNode = nullptr;
    Queue Q,parentQ;

    if(!T.root)
        return nullptr;

    enqueue(Q, T.root);
    enqueue(parentQ, nullptr);
    while(!isEmptyQueue(Q)) {
        temp = dequeue(Q);
        *parent = dequeue(parentQ);
        if(temp->data == data) {
            searchNode = temp;
        }
        if(temp->left) {
            enqueue(Q, temp->left);
            enqueue(parentQ, temp);
        }
        if(temp->right) {
            enqueue(Q, temp->right);
            enqueue(parentQ, temp);
        }
    }
    *deepest = temp;
    return searchNode;
}

Modify the deleteNode() function as:

void deleteNode(Tree &T, int data) {
    tnode *deepestnode,*parent;
    tnode *search = searchNode(T, data, &deepestnode, &parent);

    if(search) {
        search->data = deepestnode->data;
        removeNode(T, deepestnode);
    }

}

This way, you can get the parent node in a single traversal and now you can modify your remove function accordingly.