Consider the operation of deleting the root of a binary search tree.If the root has one child,then
A) the root of the subtree should be recursively deleted
B) the element stored in the root node should be replaced with null
C) the reference to the root of the tree should be set to point to the one child
D) the operation should be recursively performed on the one subtree of the root

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

If the root of a binary search tree has only one child, then the reference to the root of the tree should be set to point to the one child. This is because in a binary search tree, the right subtree contains all values greater than the root, and the left subtree contains all values less than the root. So, in order to maintain the ordering of the binary search tree, we need to set the root's parent's reference to the one child. This effectively "promotes" the child to the new root of the tree. The other choices are not suitable because recursively deleting the subtree or performing the operation on only one subtree may result in an incomplete or incorrect tree, and replacing the root node's element with null would not maintain the structure of the binary search tree.

Consider the Operation of Deleting the Root of a Binary