Question

Possible Duplicate:
Where is binary search used in practice?
What are the applications of binary trees?

I have done various exercises involving adding,deleting,ordering and so on.

However i am having a hard time visualizing the use of binary search tree in real world programs. I mean sure it is way faster than some of the other algorithms for searching. But is this its only use ?

Could you give me some examples of this algorithm use in real world software.

Answer 1

Whenever you use maps (or dictionaries) you are using binary search trees. This means that when you need to store arrays that look like

myArray["not_an_integer"] = 42;

you are probably using binary search trees.

In C++ for instance, you have the std::map and std::hash_map types. The first one is coded as a binary tree with O(log(n)) insertion and lookup, whereas the second one is coded as a hash map (with O(1) lookup time).

EDIT: I just found this answer. You should take a look at it.