Question

I am looking for an algorithm that could find the two most distant elements in a binary tree, not looking for any special language, just for the algorithm.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Its called diameter of tree.

int diameter(Tree * t) // post: return diameter of t 
{ 
     if (t == 0) return 0; 
     int lheight = height(tree->left); 
     int rheight = height(tree->right);
     int ldiameter = diameter(tree->left); 
     int rdiameter = diameter(tree->right); 
     return max(lheight + rheight + 1, max(ldiameter,rdiameter));
 } 

copied code and images from here.