Tree traversal for node search

Question

I searched the tree to find the passed value. Unfortunately this will not work. I started debugging it with fingerprints, and strangely enough, it does find the value, but skips the return statement.

    /**
  * Returns the node with the passed value
  */
 private TreeNode searchNodeBeingDeleted(Comparable c, TreeNode node)
 {  
  if(node == null) 
  {
   return null;
  }

  if(c.equals((Comparable)node.getValue()))
  {
   System.out.println("Here");
   return node;
  }
  else
  {
   if(node.getLeft() != null)
   {
    System.out.println("left");
    searchNodeBeingDeleted(c, node.getLeft());
   }
   if(node.getRight() != null)
   {
    System.out.println("right");
    searchNodeBeingDeleted(c, node.getRight());
   }
  }
  return null; //i think this gives me my null pointer at bottom
 }

It displays the results as follows:

left
left
right
right
Here
right
left
right
left
right
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
at Program_14.Driver.main(Driver.java:29)

I don't know if this will help, but here is my tree:

     L
   /   \
  D     R
 / \   / \
A   F M   U
 \       / \
  B     T   V

Thank you for your time.

Answer 1

Try the following:

private TreeNode searchNodeBeingDeleted(Comparable c, TreeNode node)
 {  
  if(node == null) 
  {
   return null;
  }

  if(c.equals((Comparable)node.getValue()))
  {
   System.out.println("Here");
   return node;
  }
  else
  {
   if(node.getLeft() != null)
   {
    System.out.println("left");
    TreeNode n = searchNodeBeingDeleted(c, node.getLeft());
    if (n != null) {
      return n;
    }
   }
   if(node.getRight() != null)
   {
    System.out.println("right");
    TreeNode n = searchNodeBeingDeleted(c, node.getRight());
    if (n != null) {
      return n;
    }
   }
  }
  return null; //i think this gives me my null pointer at bottom
 }

Answer 2

Assuming your tree is a binary search tree , not a “regular” binary tree .

null .

- :

private TreeNode searchNodeBeingDeleted(Comparable c, TreeNode node) {
    if(nodle == null) return null;
    int diff = c.compareTo((Comparable)node.getValue());
    if (diff == 0) { // yes, we found a match!
        System.out.println("Here");
        return node;
    }
    else if (diff < 0) { // traverse to the left
        System.out.println("left");
        return searchNodeBeingDeleted(c, node.getLeft());
    }
    else {  // traverse to the right
        System.out.println("right");
        return searchNodeBeingDeleted(c, node.getRight());
    }
}

Answer 3

I think you should return the value searchNodeBeingDeleted(c, node.getLeft())and searchNodeBeingDeleted(c, node.getRight())not just call these methods.

Answer 4

You use recursion in your function. “Here” you see the result of calling a function that was created from the same function. Thus, it will return the value of the "recursing" function, at this point you have not finished yet, even if you find the answer, you still need to continue to spread it up.