Question

Either I’ve been staring at this code for way too long or I just can’t figure this one out. but when I use an 8000 number text file in descending order; 8000, 7999, … I get a segmentation fault in the height function. If someone could take a look I would be so greatful. Thanks.

    int BST::height(TreeNode* node)
    {

        int leftSubtree = 0;
        int rightSubtree = 0;
        if (node == NULL)
            return 0;
        else 
        {

            if (node -> getLeft() != NULL)
                leftSubtree = height(node -> getLeft());
            if(node -> getRight() != NULL)      
                rightSubtree = height(node -> getRight());

            if (leftSubtree > rightSubtree)
                return leftSubtree + 1;
            else 
                return rightSubtree + 1;
        }
    }//ends second height

Answer 1

If you have a sorted list of numbers then you might be storing this in a list (worst case for a tree is O(n) unless it is balanced).

In this case, your recursive routine will be recursing 8000 times with a stack depth of 8000.

I don’t know if this is enough to overflow the stack, but in any case you should take a look at your tree at intermediate stages to see if everything is going down the leftmost branch.