Question

I have a Tree class with the following definition:

class Tree {
  Tree();
private:
  TreeNode *rootPtr;
}

TreeNode represents a node and has data, leftPtr and rightPtr.

How do I create a copy of a tree object using a copy constructor? I want to do something like:

Tree obj1;
//insert nodes

Tree obj2(obj1); //without modifying obj1.

Any help is appreciated!

Answer 1

Pseudo-code:

struct Tree {
  Tree(Tree const& other) {
    for (each in other) {
      insert(each);
    }
  }

  void insert(T item);
};

Concrete example (changing how you walk the tree is important to know, but detracts from showing how the copy ctor works, and might be doing too much of someone’s homework here):

#include <algorithm>
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>

template<class Type>
struct TreeNode {
  Type data;
  TreeNode* left;
  TreeNode* right;

  explicit
  TreeNode(Type const& value=Type()) : data(value), left(0), right(0) {}
};

template<class Type>
struct Tree {
  typedef TreeNode<Type> Node;

  Tree() : root(0) {}
  Tree(Tree const& other) : root(0) {
    std::vector<Node const*> remaining;
    Node const* cur = other.root;
    while (cur) {
      insert(cur->data);
      if (cur->right) {
        remaining.push_back(cur->right);
      }
      if (cur->left) {
        cur = cur->left;
      }
      else if (remaining.empty()) {
        break;
      }
      else {
        cur = remaining.back();
        remaining.pop_back();
      }
    }
  }
  ~Tree() {
    std::vector<Node*> remaining;
    Node* cur = root;
    while (cur) {
      Node* left = cur->left;
      if (cur->right) {
        remaining.push_back(cur->right);
      }
      delete cur;
      if (left) {
        cur = left;
      }
      else if (remaining.empty()) {
        break;
      }
      else {
        cur = remaining.back();
        remaining.pop_back();
      }
    }
  }

  void insert(Type const& value) {
    // sub-optimal insert
    Node* new_root = new Node(value);
    new_root->left = root;
    root = new_root;
  }

  // easier to include simple op= than either disallow it
  // or be wrong by using the compiler-supplied one
  void swap(Tree& other) { std::swap(root, other.root); }
  Tree& operator=(Tree copy) { swap(copy); return *this; }

  friend
  ostream& operator<<(ostream& s, Tree const& t) {
    std::vector<Node const*> remaining;
    Node const* cur = t.root;
    while (cur) {
      s << cur->data << ' ';
      if (cur->right) {
        remaining.push_back(cur->right);
      }
      if (cur->left) {
        cur = cur->left;
      }
      else if (remaining.empty()) {
        break;
      }
      else {
        cur = remaining.back();
        remaining.pop_back();
      }
    }
    return s;
  }

private:
  Node* root;
};

int main() {
  using namespace std;

  Tree<int> a;
  a.insert(5);
  a.insert(28);
  a.insert(3);
  a.insert(42);
  cout << a << '\n';      

  Tree<int> b (a);
  cout << b << '\n';

  return 0;
}