Searching in a BST
- Start from the root node.
- Compare the data in each node with the key. If it matches, return pointer to that node.
- If the key is lesser than the data in the node, move pointer to the left child.
- If the key is greater than the data in the node, move pointer to the right child.
- If pointer becomes null, it means the we have reached the end of the tree and the element was not found. Therefore, return NULL.
struct Node *BSTsearch(struct Node *ptr, int key) {
while (ptr != NULL) {
if (key == ptr -> data) {
return ptr;
} else if (key < ptr -> data) {
ptr = ptr -> left;
} else {
ptr = ptr -> right;
}
}
return NULL;
}
struct Node *BSTsearch(struct Node *ptr, int key) {
if (ptr == NULL) {
return NULL;
}
if (key == ptr -> data) {
return ptr;
} else if (key < ptr -> data) {
return BSTsearch(ptr -> left, key);
} else {
return BSTsearch(ptr -> right, key);
}
}
Time Complexity : O(log n)
Contributed by Nitin Ranganath