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TSEARCH(3)                    Linux Programmer's Manual                    TSEARCH(3)

NAME         top

       tsearch, tfind, tdelete, twalk, tdestroy - manage a binary tree

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <search.h>

       void *tsearch(const void *key, void **rootp,
                       int (*compar)(const void *, const void *));

       void *tfind(const void *key, const void **rootp,
                       int (*compar)(const void *, const void *));

       void *tdelete(const void *key, void **rootp,
                       int (*compar)(const void *, const void *));

       void twalk(const void *root, void (*action)(const void *nodep,
                                          const VISIT which,
                                          const int depth));

       #define _GNU_SOURCE         /* See feature_test_macros(7) */
       #include <search.h>

       void tdestroy(void *root, void (*free_node)(void *nodep));

DESCRIPTION         top

       tsearch(), tfind(), twalk(), and tdelete() manage a binary tree.  They are
       generalized from Knuth (6.2.2) Algorithm T.  The first field in each node of
       the tree is a pointer to the corresponding data item.  (The calling program
       must store the actual data.)  compar points to a comparison routine, which
       takes pointers to two items.  It should return an integer which is negative,
       zero, or positive, depending on whether the first item is less than, equal to,
       or greater than the second.

       tsearch() searches the tree for an item.  key points to the item to be
       searched for.  rootp points to a variable which points to the root of the
       tree.  If the tree is empty, then the variable that rootp points to should be
       set to NULL.  If the item is found in the tree, then tsearch() returns a
       pointer to it.  If it is not found, then tsearch() adds it, and returns a
       pointer to the newly added item.

       tfind() is like tsearch(), except that if the item is not found, then tfind()
       returns NULL.

       tdelete() deletes an item from the tree.  Its arguments are the same as for
       tsearch().

       twalk() performs depth-first, left-to-right traversal of a binary tree.  root
       points to the starting node for the traversal.  If that node is not the root,
       then only part of the tree will be visited.  twalk() calls the user function
       action each time a node is visited (that is, three times for an internal node,
       and once for a leaf).  action, in turn, takes three arguments.  The first is a
       pointer to the node being visited.  The second is an integer which takes on
       the values preorder, postorder, and endorder depending on whether this is the
       first, second, or third visit to the internal node, or leaf if it is the
       single visit to a leaf node.  (These symbols are defined in <search.h>.)  The
       third argument is the depth of the node, with zero being the root.

       (More commonly, preorder, postorder, and endorder are known as preorder,
       inorder, and postorder: before visiting the children, after the first and
       before the second, and after visiting the children.  Thus, the choice of name
       postorder is rather confusing.)

       tdestroy() removes the whole tree pointed to by root, freeing all resources
       allocated by the tsearch() function.  For the data in each tree node the
       function free_node is called.  The pointer to the data is passed as the
       argument to the function.  If no such work is necessary free_node must point
       to a function doing nothing.

RETURN VALUE         top

       tsearch() returns a pointer to a matching item in the tree, or to the newly
       added item, or NULL if there was insufficient memory to add the item.  tfind()
       returns a pointer to the item, or NULL if no match is found.  If there are
       multiple elements that match the key, the element returned is unspecified.

       tdelete() returns a pointer to the parent of the item deleted, or NULL if the
       item was not found.

       tsearch(), tfind(), and tdelete() also return NULL if rootp was NULL on entry.

CONFORMING TO         top

       SVr4, POSIX.1-2001.  The function tdestroy() is a GNU extension.

NOTES         top

       twalk() takes a pointer to the root, while the other functions take a pointer
       to a variable which points to the root.

       twalk() uses postorder to mean "after the left subtree, but before the right
       subtree".  Some authorities would call this "inorder", and reserve "postorder"
       to mean "after both subtrees".

       tdelete() frees the memory required for the node in the tree.  The user is
       responsible for freeing the memory for the corresponding data.

       The example program depends on the fact that twalk() makes no further
       reference to a node after calling the user function with argument "endorder"
       or "leaf".  This works with the GNU library implementation, but is not in the
       System V documentation.

EXAMPLE         top

       The following program inserts twelve random numbers into a binary tree, where
       duplicate numbers are collapsed, then prints the numbers in order.

       #define _GNU_SOURCE     /* Expose declaration of tdestroy() */
       #include <search.h>
       #include <stdlib.h>
       #include <stdio.h>
       #include <time.h>

       void *root = NULL;

       void *
       xmalloc(unsigned n)
       {
           void *p;
           p = malloc(n);
           if (p)
               return p;
           fprintf(stderr, "insufficient memory\n");
           exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
       }

       int
       compare(const void *pa, const void *pb)
       {
           if (*(int *) pa < *(int *) pb)
               return -1;
           if (*(int *) pa > *(int *) pb)
               return 1;

           return 0;
       }

       void
       action(const void *nodep, const VISIT which, const int depth)
       {
           int *datap;

           switch (which) {
           case preorder:
               break;
           case postorder:
               datap = *(int **) nodep;
               printf("%6d\n", *datap);
               break;
           case endorder:
               break;
           case leaf:
               datap = *(int **) nodep;
               printf("%6d\n", *datap);
               break;
           }
       }

       int
       main(void)
       {
           int i, *ptr;
           void *val;

           srand(time(NULL));
           for (i = 0; i < 12; i++) {
               ptr = (int *) xmalloc(sizeof(int));
               *ptr = rand() & 0xff;
               val = tsearch((void *) ptr, &root, compare);
               if (val == NULL)
                   exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
               else if ((*(int **) val) != ptr)
                   free(ptr);
           }
           twalk(root, action);
           tdestroy(root, free);
           exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
       }

SEE ALSO         top

       bsearch(3), hsearch(3), lsearch(3), qsort(3)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of release 3.32 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
       description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found
       at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

GNU                                   2008-09-23                           TSEARCH(3)

HTML rendering created 2010-12-03 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface

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