Left-Leaning Red-Black Trees Study Guide
Tree rotations. We rotateLeft or rotateRight on a node, creating a different but valid BST with the same elements. Notice when we rotateLeft(G), the node G becomes the left child of the new root.
Left-Leaning Red Black Tree. Implements a 2-3 tree as a BST with rotations and recoloring. Be able to convert between a 2-3 tree and a LLRB tree. We use red edges to indicate two nodes that would be in the same 3-node (node with 2 keys and 3 non-null children). In a left-leaning red-black tree, we arbitrarily enforce that the tree is left-leaning.
- Perfect black balance. Every root-to-null path has the same number of black edges.
- Left-leaning. Red edges lean left.
- Color invariant. No node has two red edges connected to it, either above/below or left/right.
LLRB Operations. Always recursively insert with a red edge at the correct location. Then use the following three operations to fix the LLRB tree before leaving each recursive call.
- If there is a right red edge and a left black edge, rotate that node left.
- If there are two consecutive right left edges, rotate right on the top node.
- If there is a node with two red edges to both children, flip the colors of all edges touching that node.