Diameter of Binary Tree - Better Design

Question

I have written a code for finding diameter of Binary Tree. Need suggestions for the following:

1. Can I do this without using static variable at class level?

Answer 1

There are three cases to consider when trying to find the longest path between two nodes in a binary tree (diameter):

1. The longest path passes through the root,
2. The longest path is entirely contained in the left sub-tree,
3. The longest path is entirely contained in the right sub-tree.

The longest path through the root is simply the sum of the heights of the left and right sub-trees (+1 for the root not necessary since the diameter of a tree with a root node and 1 left, 1 right subtree nodes will be 2), and the other two can be found recursively:

public static int getDiameter(BinaryTreeNode root) {        
    if (root == null)
        return 0;

    int rootDiameter = getHeight(root.getLeft()) + getHeight(root.getRight()); //Removing the +1
    int leftDiameter = getDiameter(root.getLeft());
    int rightDiameter = getDiameter(root.getRight());

    return Math.max(rootDiameter, Math.max(leftDiameter, rightDiameter));
}

public static int getHeight(BinaryTreeNode root) {
    if (root == null)
        return 0;

    return Math.max(getHeight(root.getLeft()), getHeight(root.getRight())) + 1;
}

Answer 2

One more O(n) solution in python,
code is self explanatory, only issue with this code is it returns tuple containing both height and diameter of the tree. 

def diameter(node, height):
  if node is None:
    return 0, 0
  leftheight  = 0
  rightheight = 0
  leftdiameter,  leftheight = diameter(node.left, leftheight)
  rightdiameter, rightheight = diameter(node.right, rightheight)
  rootheight = 1 + max(leftheight, rightheight ) 
  rootdiameter = ( leftheight + rightheight + 1 )
  return max( rootdiameter, leftdiameter, rightdiameter ), rootheight

Answer 3

Neat and clean solution:

// way to use below util function:
prop p = new prop();
diameterUtil(root, p);
System.out.println(p.d);

class prop {
    int h;
    int d;
}

private void diameterUtil(Node n, prop p) {
    if (n == null) {
        p.h = 0;
        p.d = 0;
        return;
    }
    prop lp = new prop();
    prop rp = new prop();
    diameterUtil(n.left, lp);
    diameterUtil(n.right, rp);
    p.h = Math.max(lp.h, rp.h) + 1;
    p.d = Math.max((lp.h + rp.h + 1), Math.max(lp.d, rp.d));
}

Answer 4

There is a minimal O(n) answer compared to the accepted one.

int DiameterTree(BinaryTreeNode root, int diameter) {
    int left, right;
    if (!root) return 0;

    left  = DiameterTree(root.getLeft(), diameter);
    right = DiameterTree(root.getRight(), diameter);
    if (left + right > diameter) diameter = left + right;

    return Math.max(left, right) + 1;
}

Assume diameter is a static variable in class.

Answer 5

The diameter of a tree T is

Diameter(T) = max( Diameter(T.left), Diameter(T.right), Height(T.left)+Height(T.right)+1 )

 private class Data {  
   public int height;  
   public int diameter;  
 }  

 private void diameter(TreeNode root, Data d) {  
   if (root == null) {  
     d.height = 0; d.diameter = 0; return;  
   }  
   diameter(root.left, d); // get data in left subtree  
   int hLeft = d.height;  
   int dLeft = d.diameter;  
   diameter(root.right, d); // overwrite with data in right tree  
   d.diameter = Math.max(Math.max(dLeft, d.diameter), hLeft+d.height+1);  
   d.height = Math.max(hLeft, d.height) + 1;  
 }  

 public int diameter(TreeNode root) {  
   Data data = new Data();  
   diameter(root, data);  
   return data.diameter;  
 }  

Answer 6

Here is a solution in Java that has O(N) time complexity. It calculates the height in the same recursion when calculating the diameter. Reference Link

private class HeightWrapper {
    int height = 0;
}

private int getDiameter_helper(BinaryTreeNode root, HeightWrapper wrapper) {
    if (root == null) {
        return 0; // diameter and height are 0
    }

    /* wrappers for heights of the left and right subtrees */
    HeightWrapper lhWrapper = new HeightWrapper();
    HeightWrapper rhWrapper = new HeightWrapper();

    /* get heights of left and right subtrees and their diameters */
    int leftDiameter = getDiameter_helper(root.left, lhWrapper);
    int rightDiameter = getDiameter_helper(root.right, rhWrapper);

    /* calculate root diameter */
    int rootDiameter = lhWrapper.height + rhWrapper.height + 1;

    /* calculate height of current node */
    wrapper.height = Math.max(lhWrapper.height, rhWrapper.height) + 1;

    /* calculate the diameter */
    return Math.max(rootDiameter, Math.max(leftDiameter, rightDiameter));
}

public int getDiameter(BinaryTreeNode root) {
    HeightWrapper wrapper = new HeightWrapper();
    return getDiameter_helper(root, wrapper);
}