Book Image

Learning JavaScript Data Structures and Algorithms - Third Edition

Book Image

Learning JavaScript Data Structures and Algorithms - Third Edition

Overview of this book

A data structure is a particular way of organizing data in a computer to utilize resources efficiently. Data structures and algorithms are the base of every solution to any programming problem. With this book, you will learn to write complex and powerful code using the latest ES 2017 features. Learning JavaScript Data Structures and Algorithms begins by covering the basics of JavaScript and introduces you to ECMAScript 2017, before gradually moving on to the most important data structures such as arrays, queues, stacks, and linked lists. You will gain in-depth knowledge of how hash tables and set data structures function as well as how trees and hash maps can be used to search files in an HD or represent a database. This book serves as a route to take you deeper into JavaScript. You’ll also get a greater understanding of why and how graphs, one of the most complex data structures, are largely used in GPS navigation systems in social networks. Toward the end of the book, you’ll discover how all the theories presented in this book can be applied to solve real-world problems while working on your own computer networks and Facebook searches.
Table of Contents (22 chapters)
Title Page
Dedication
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

Searching for values in a tree


There are three types of searches that are usually performed in trees:

  • Searching for minimum values
  • Searching for maximum values
  • Searching for a specific value

Let’s take a look at each one in the following topics.

Searching for minimum and maximum values

Consider the following tree for our examples:

Just looking at the preceding figure, could you easily find the minimum and maximum values of the tree?

If you take a look at the leftmost node in the last level of the tree, you will find the value 3, which is the lowest key from this tree, and if you take a look at the node that is furthest to the right (also in the last level of the tree), you will find the value 25, which is the highest key in this tree. This information helps us a lot when implementing methods that will find the minimum and maximum nodes of the tree.

First, let’s take a look at the method that will find the minimum key of the tree, as follows:

min() {
  return this.minNode(this.root); // {1}
}

The min...