Question

What is Inorder Traversal?

Answer 1

Inorder traversal is a type of binary tree traversal algorithm that systematically visits all the nodes of a binary tree in a specific order. In this traversal, nodes are visited in the following order:

1. Traverse the left subtree.
2. Visit the current node.
3. Traverse the right subtree.

In other words, inorder traversal first explores all the nodes in the left subtree, then visits the current node, and finally explores all the nodes in the right subtree.

In terms of pseudocode, an inorder traversal can be implemented recursively as follows:

inorder(node):
    if node is not null:
        inorder(node.left)
        visit(node)
        inorder(node.right)
 

Here's a step-by-step explanation of how the inorder traversal algorithm works:

1. Check if the current node is not null.
2. If the current node is not null, recursively call the inorder function on the left child of the current node.
3. Visit the current node.
4. Recursively call the inorder function on the right child of the current node.

Inorder traversal is commonly used in binary search trees (BSTs) to retrieve all elements in sorted order. Because of the order in which nodes are visited (left, current, right), inorder traversal produces a sorted sequence of elements when applied to a binary search tree. This property makes inorder traversal useful for tasks that require accessing elements in a sorted order, such as searching, iterating, or printing elements of a BST.