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Please somebody help me here, I am facing problem with return and recurrsive function using together for a long time now; How effectively and clean I can use with my following program and my programming journey.
here in this example code, even if I found the element and return true, the previous recursive function will undermine the value and return different value.
Your code so far
var displayTree = tree => console.log(JSON.stringify(tree, null, 2));
function Node(value) {
this.value = value;
this.left = null;
this.right = null;
}
function BinarySearchTree() {
this.root = null;
// Only change code below this line
this.add = function(ele){
let node = new Node(ele);
if(!this.root){
this.root = node;
}
else {
this.insert(this.root,node)
}
};
this.insert = function(root,newNode){
if(root==newNode){
return null;
}
else if(newNode.value < root.value){
if(!root.left) {
root.left = newNode;
} else {
this.insert(root.left,newNode);
}
}
else if(newNode.value > root.value){
if(!root.right) {
root.right = newNode;
} else {
this.insert(root.right,newNode);
}
}
}
this.isPresent = function(ele) {
if(!this.root){
return null;
}
else if(ele == this.root.value) {
return true;
}
else if(ele<this.root.value) {
return this.find(this.root.left,ele);
}
}
this.find = function(root,e) {
if(!root) {
return null;
}
if (e == root.left.value) {
return true;
}
else if(e < root.left.value){
this.find(root.left, e);
}
}
// Only change code above this line
}
let bst = new BinarySearchTree();
bst.add(20);
bst.add(10);
bst.add(5);
bst.add(3);
console.log(bst.root);
console.log(bst.isPresent(3))
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Challenge: Data Structures - Check if an Element is Present in a Binary Search Tree
I have created a binary search tree with this element 20, 10 , 5 and 3. While I run the function isPresent(3), it find the element 3 and return true but this return value is overridden by return value of 5 because I am using recursive function, hence the output is ‘undefined’ instead of ‘true’.
I have problem with implementation of recursive function and return value.
undefined can mean that recursive function at some point is not returning anything explicitly. Result of the intermediate recursive calls needs to be returned, otherwise results of deeper recursive call will be lost.
there is two return statement, one is if the array element become empty which means the item is not found, hence return “false”. Another return statement is when the item is found. Here is the code below:
if(arr.length-1 < 0) {
return false; //return when item is not found
}
else if( item == arr[0]) {
return true; //return when element is found
}
That’s the part returning from recursive call, what about returning the result of recursive call from the call one level higher?
Consider what happens for the example from your code:
let array = [5,2,1,4,3];
find([5,2,1,4,3], 1)
// Item is not at the index `0`, array is not empty,
// recursive call follows
find([2,1,4,3], 1)
// Item is not at the index `0`, array is not empty,
// recursive call follows
find([1,4,3], 1)
// Item is at the index `0`, `true` is returned
find([1,4,3], 1) -> true;
// Going back through recursive calls
// result of recursive call is not returned, function doesn't
// return anything explicitly, implicitly `undefined` is returned
find([2,1,4,3], 1) -> undefined
// result of recursive call is not returned, function doesn't
// return anything explicitly, implicitly `undefined` is returned
find([5,2,1,4,3], 1) -> undefined
Thanks sanity, I got your point now. I am not able to figure it out how to explicitly return it and also how the below function able to return the value from implicit only.
function isEven(number) {
if (number % 2 === 0) {
return true;
} else {
return false;
}
};
console.log(isEven(2));
I don’t see any difference between find and isEven function except one is recursive and one is normal function. And I am not able to see how a normal function explicitly returning a correct value.
recursive call - result of the call should be returned
Two first cases are basically the same for isEven, but the third one is what makes find recursive and makes the difference.
However how result of function call can be used is basically the same. Imagine, that isEven is supposed to be used in another function, ie.:
function evenBetween(start, stop) {
for (let i = start; i <= stop; i++) {
isEven(i)
}
}
Right now the isEven(i) is called, but result of it isn’t used for anything. If we’d want to print even numbers it could be something like:
function evenBetween(start, stop) {
for (let i = start; i <= stop; i++) {
if (isEven(i)) {
console.log(i);
}
}
}
Here the result of isEven(i) is used. find doesn’t need to use the result in some additional conditional, but the idea is similar.
sanity thanks alot for taking your valuable time and explaining me alot about explicit and implicit return with recursive function.
I have kind of understand the work around but not confident about it and its internal working yet. Maybe it will take some more reading to observe fully.
Here I solve the problem with returning the recursive function which you are trying to guide me from the beginning.