Help me understand Inorder Traversal without using recursion

Question

I am able to understand preorder traversal without using recursion, but I\'m having a hard time with inorder traversal. I just don\'t seem to get it, perhaps, because I have

Answer 1

Simple iterative inorder traversal without recursion

'''iterative inorder traversal, O(n) time & O(n) space '''

class Node:
    def __init__(self, value, left = None, right = None):
        self.value = value
        self.left = left
        self.right = right

def inorder_iter(root):

    stack = [root]
    current = root

    while len(stack) > 0:
        if current:
            while current.left:
                stack.append(current.left)
                current = current.left
        popped_node = stack.pop()
        current = None
        if popped_node:
            print popped_node.value
            current = popped_node.right
            stack.append(current)

a = Node('a')
b = Node('b')
c = Node('c')
d = Node('d')

b.right = d
a.left = b
a.right = c

inorder_iter(a)

Answer 2

def traverseInorder(node):
   lifo = Lifo()

  while node is not None:
    if node.left is not None:
       lifo.push(node)
       node = node.left
       continue

   print node.value

   if node.right is not None:
      node = node.right
      continue

   node = lifo.Pop()
   if node is not None :
      print node.value
      node = node.right

PS: I don't know Python so there may be a few syntax issues.

Answer 3

State can be remembered implicitly,

traverse(node) {
   if(!node) return;
   push(stack, node);
   while (!empty(stack)) {
     /*Remember the left nodes in stack*/
     while (node->left) {
        push(stack, node->left);
        node = node->left;
      }

      /*Process the node*/
      printf("%d", node->data);

      /*Do the tail recursion*/
      if(node->right) {
         node = node->right
      } else {
         node = pop(stack); /*New Node will be from previous*/
      }
    }
 }

Answer 4

Here is a sample of in order traversal using stack in c# (.net):

(for post order iterative you may refer to: Post order traversal of binary tree without recursion)

public string InOrderIterative()
        {
            List<int> nodes = new List<int>();
            if (null != this._root)
            {
                Stack<BinaryTreeNode> stack = new Stack<BinaryTreeNode>();
                var iterativeNode = this._root;
                while(iterativeNode != null)
                {
                    stack.Push(iterativeNode);
                    iterativeNode = iterativeNode.Left;
                }
                while(stack.Count > 0)
                {
                    iterativeNode = stack.Pop();
                    nodes.Add(iterativeNode.Element);
                    if(iterativeNode.Right != null)
                    {
                        stack.Push(iterativeNode.Right);
                        iterativeNode = iterativeNode.Right.Left;
                        while(iterativeNode != null)
                        {
                            stack.Push(iterativeNode);
                            iterativeNode = iterativeNode.Left;
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
            return this.ListToString(nodes);
        }

Here is a sample with visited flag:

public string InorderIterative_VisitedFlag()
        {
            List<int> nodes = new List<int>();
            if (null != this._root)
            {
                Stack<BinaryTreeNode> stack = new Stack<BinaryTreeNode>();
                BinaryTreeNode iterativeNode = null;
                stack.Push(this._root);
                while(stack.Count > 0)
                {
                    iterativeNode = stack.Pop();
                    if(iterativeNode.visted)
                    {
                        iterativeNode.visted = false;
                        nodes.Add(iterativeNode.Element);
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        iterativeNode.visted = true;
                        if(iterativeNode.Right != null)
                        {
                            stack.Push(iterativeNode.Right);
                        }
                        stack.Push(iterativeNode);
                        if (iterativeNode.Left != null)
                        {
                            stack.Push(iterativeNode.Left);
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
            return this.ListToString(nodes);
        }

the definitions of the binarytreenode, listtostring utility:

string ListToString(List<int> list)
        {
            string s = string.Join(", ", list);
            return s;
        }


class BinaryTreeNode
    {
        public int Element;
        public BinaryTreeNode Left;
        public BinaryTreeNode Right;        
    }

Answer 5

Here is a simple in-order non-recursive c++ code ..

void inorder (node *n)
{
    stack s;

    while(n){
        s.push(n);
        n=n->left;
    }

    while(!s.empty()){
        node *t=s.pop();
        cout<<t->data;
        t=t->right;

        while(t){
            s.push(t);
            t = t->left;
        }
    }
}

Answer 6

@Victor, I have some suggestion on your implementation trying to push the state into the stack. I don't see it is necessary. Because every element you take from the stack is already left traversed. so instead of store the information into the stack, all we need is a flag to indicate if the next node to be processed is from that stack or not. Following is my implementation which works fine:

def intraverse(node):
    stack = []
    leftChecked = False
    while node != None:
        if not leftChecked and node.left != None:
            stack.append(node)
            node = node.left
        else:
            print node.data
            if node.right != None:
                node = node.right
                leftChecked = False
            elif len(stack)>0:
                node = stack.pop()
                leftChecked = True
            else:
                node = None