Question

Design an algorithm to serialize and deserialize a binary search tree. There is no restriction on how your serialization/deserialization algorithm should work. You just need to ensure that a binary search tree can be serialized to a string and this string can be deserialized to the original tree structure.

Answer 1

To serialize and deserialize a binary search tree, we can use depth-first search (DFS) algorithm. In the serialization step, we traverse the tree in a pre-order manner and append each node value to a string, separating them with a delimiter. In the deserialization step, we split the string and recreate the binary search tree by inserting the values in the correct order.

Step-by-step explanation:

To serialize and deserialize a binary search tree, we can use a depth-first search (DFS) algorithm. In the serialization step, we traverse the tree in a pre-order manner and append each node value to a string, separating them with a delimiter. In the deserialization step, we split the string using the delimiter and recreate the binary search tree by inserting the values in the correct order.

For example, suppose we have a binary search tree with the following structure:

4
/ \
2 5
/ \ / \
1 3 6 7

The serialized string would be '4,2,1,#,#,3,#,#,5,6,#,#,7,#,#,'. To deserialize this string, we split it using the delimiter ',' and insert the values in the order they appear, resulting in the original binary search tree.