Serialization is the process of converting a data structure or object into a sequence of bits so that it can be stored in a file or memory buffer, or transmitted across a network connection link to be reconstructed later in the same or another computer environment.
Design an algorithm to serialize and deserialize a binary tree. There is no restriction on how your serialization/deserialization algorithm should work. You just need to ensure that a binary tree can be serialized to a string and this string can be deserialized to the original tree structure.
For example, you may serialize the following tree
1 / \ 2 3 / \ 4 5as
"[1,2,3,null,null,4,5]"
, just the same as
how LeetCode OJ serializes a binary tree. You do not necessarily need to follow this format, so please be creative and come up with different approaches yourself.
Note: Do not use class member/global/static variables to store states. Your serialize and deserialize algorithms should be stateless.
I currently only wrote a recursive way. I will update with a iterative way.
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include <sstream>
using namespace std;
struct TreeNode {
int val;
TreeNode* left;
TreeNode* right;
TreeNode(int value) : val(value), left(NULL), right(NULL) {}
};
/*
The tree is set up as
1
2 3
N N N N
*/
TreeNode* setUpTree() {
TreeNode* root = new TreeNode(1);
root->left = new TreeNode(2);
root->right = new TreeNode(3);
return root;
}
void serializeTree(TreeNode* root, string& output) {
if(root == NULL) {output += "#"; return;}
else {
output += to_string(root->val);
serializeTree(root->left, output);
serializeTree(root->right, output);
}
}
void deserialize_root(TreeNode*& root, istringstream& in) {
char val;
in >> val;
if(val != '#') {
root = new TreeNode(val - '0');
deserialize_root(root->left, in);
deserialize_root(root->right, in);
}
}
void deserialize(TreeNode*& root, string input) {
int pos = 0;
istringstream in(input);
deserialize_root(root, in);
}
int main(void) {
TreeNode* root = setUpTree();
string output = "";
serializeTree(root, output);
cout << output << endl;
TreeNode* newRoot = NULL;
string newOutput = "";
deserialize(newRoot, output);
serializeTree(newRoot, newOutput);
cout << newOutput << endl;
}