Red Black Trees
Red Black Trees
For the purpose of this discussion, the NULL nodes which terminate the tree are
considered to be the leaves and are coloured black.
Definition of a red-black tree
A red-black tree is a binary search tree which has the following red-black properties:
1. Every node is either red or black.
2. Every leaf (NULL) is black.
3. If a node is red, then both its children are black.
4. Every simple path from a node to a descendant
leaf contains the same number of black nodes.
The number of black nodes on any path from, but not including, a node x to a leaf is
called the black-height of a node, denoted bh(x). We can prove the following lemma:
Lemma
Insertion
Insertion is somewhat complex and involves a number of cases. Note that we start by
inserting the new node, x, in the tree just as we would for any other binary tree, using
the tree_insertfunction. This new node is labelled red, and possibly destroys the redblack property. The main loop moves up the tree, restoring the red-black property.
rb_insert( Tree T, node x ) {
/* Insert in the tree in the usual way */
tree_insert( T, x );
/* Now restore the red-black property */
x->colour = red;
while ( (x != T->root) && (x->parent->colour == red) ) {
if ( x->parent == x->parent->parent->left ) {
/* If x's parent is a left, y is x's right 'uncle' */
y = x->parent->parent->right;
if ( y->colour == red ) {
/* case 1 - change the colours */
x->parent->colour = black;
y->colour = black;
x->parent->parent->colour = red;
/* Move x up the tree */
x = x->parent->parent;
}
else {
/* y is a black node */
if ( x == x->parent->right ) {
/* and x is to the right */
/* case 2 - move x up and rotate */
x = x->parent;
left_rotate( T, x );
}
/* case 3 */
x->parent->colour = black;
x->parent->parent->colour = red;
right_rotate( T, x->parent->parent );
}
}