I have a program where I need to search for a specific word in a binary tree, the code I came up with for the search method for the string is not working. if someone could take a look at it I would greatly appreciate it.
I have tried a few alterations to this but it still did not work.
public boolean check(BSTNode t,String key){
if(!t.word.equals(key)){
check(t.left,key);
check(t.right,key);
}
else{
return true;
}
return false;
}
This could be written like this;
public boolean check(BSTNode t,String key) {
return
t.word.equals(key) || check(t.left,key) || check(t.right,key)
}
or, more verbosely;
public boolean check(BSTNode t,String key) {
if (t.word.equals(key)) return true;
if (check(t.left,key)) return true;
if (check(t.right,key)) return true;
return false;
}
You don't need a lot of else statements because the return statements stop execution in the function.
Edit:
You must also check to see that your BSTNode is not null, or you will get null pointer exceptions when you reach the end of the tree. This could be done at the start of the function, or before the inner recursive check calls:
public boolean check(BSTNode t,String key) {
if (t == null) return false;
if (t.word.equals(key)) return true;
if (check(t.left,key)) return true;
if (check(t.right,key)) return true;
return false;
}
or;
public boolean check(BSTNode t,String key) {
if (t.word.equals(key)) return true;
if (t.left != null && check(t.left,key)) return true;
if (t.right != null && check(t.right,key)) return true;
return false;
}
