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tsearch(3)                 Library Functions Manual                 tsearch(3)

NAME
       tsearch,  tfind,  tdelete,  twalk,  twalk_r, tdestroy - manage a binary
       search tree

LIBRARY
       Standard C library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
       #include <search.h>

       typedef enum { preorder, postorder, endorder, leaf } VISIT;

       void *tsearch(const void *key, void **rootp,
                       int (*compar)(const void *, const void *));
       void *tfind(const void *key, void *const *rootp,
                       int (*compar)(const void *, const void *));
       void *tdelete(const void *restrict key, void **restrict rootp,
                       int (*compar)(const void *, const void *));
       void twalk(const void *root,
                       void (*action)(const void *nodep, VISIT which,
                                      int depth));

       #define _GNU_SOURCE         /* See feature_test_macros(7) */
       #include <search.h>

       void twalk_r(const void *root,
                       void (*action)(const void *nodep, VISIT which,
                                      void *closure),
                       void *closure);
       void tdestroy(void *root, void (*free_node)(void *nodep));

DESCRIPTION
       tsearch(), tfind(), twalk(), and tdelete() manage a binary search tree.
       They  are  generalized from Knuth (6.2.2) Algorithm T.  The first field
       in each node of the tree is a pointer to the corresponding  data  item.
       (The  calling  program must store the actual data.)  compar points to a
       comparison routine, which takes pointers to two items.  It  should  re-
       turn  an  integer  which  is  negative, zero, or positive, depending on
       whether the first item is less than, equal to, or greater than the sec-
       ond.

       tsearch()  searches the tree for an item.  key points to the item to be
       searched for.  rootp points to a variable which points to the  root  of
       the tree.  If the tree is empty, then the variable that rootp points to
       should be set to NULL.   If  the  item  is  found  in  the  tree,  then
       tsearch()  returns a pointer to the corresponding tree node.  (In other
       words, tsearch() returns a pointer to a pointer to the data item.)   If
       the item is not found, then tsearch() adds it, and returns a pointer to
       the corresponding tree node.

       tfind() is like tsearch(), except that if the item is not  found,  then
       tfind() returns NULL.

       tdelete() deletes an item from the tree.  Its arguments are the same as
       for tsearch().

       twalk() performs depth-first, left-to-right traversal of a binary tree.
       root  points  to  the starting node for the traversal.  If that node is
       not the root, then only part of the  tree  will  be  visited.   twalk()
       calls  the  user  function action each time a node is visited (that is,
       three times for an internal node, and once for  a  leaf).   action,  in
       turn,  takes  three  arguments.  The first argument is a pointer to the
       node being visited.  The structure of the node is unspecified,  but  it
       is  possible  to cast the pointer to a pointer-to-pointer-to-element in
       order to access the element stored within the  node.   The  application
       must  not modify the structure pointed to by this argument.  The second
       argument is an integer which takes one of  the  values  preorder,  pos-
       torder,  or endorder depending on whether this is the first, second, or
       third visit to the internal node, or the value leaf if this is the sin-
       gle  visit  to a leaf node.  (These symbols are defined in <search.h>.)
       The third argument is the depth of the node; the root  node  has  depth
       zero.

       (More  commonly,  preorder,  postorder,  and endorder are known as pre-
       order, inorder, and postorder: before visiting the children, after  the
       first  and  before  the second, and after visiting the children.  Thus,
       the choice of name postorder is rather confusing.)

       twalk_r() is similar to twalk(), but instead of the depth argument, the
       closure  argument  pointer  is  passed to each invocation of the action
       callback, unchanged.  This pointer can be used to pass  information  to
       and  from  the  callback function in a thread-safe fashion, without re-
       sorting to global variables.

       tdestroy() removes the whole tree pointed to by root, freeing  all  re-
       sources allocated by the tsearch() function.  For the data in each tree
       node the function free_node is called.  The  pointer  to  the  data  is
       passed  as the argument to the function.  If no such work is necessary,
       free_node must point to a function doing nothing.

RETURN VALUE
       tsearch() returns a pointer to a matching node in the tree, or  to  the
       newly  added  node, or NULL if there was insufficient memory to add the
       item.  tfind() returns a pointer to the node, or NULL if  no  match  is
       found.   If there are multiple items that match the key, the item whose
       node is returned is unspecified.

       tdelete() returns a pointer to the parent of the node deleted, or  NULL
       if  the  item  was  not  found.  If the deleted node was the root node,
       tdelete() returns a dangling pointer that must not be accessed.

       tsearch(), tfind(), and tdelete() also return NULL if rootp was NULL on
       entry.

VERSIONS
       twalk_r() is available since glibc 2.30.

ATTRIBUTES
       For  an  explanation  of  the  terms  used  in  this  section,  see at-
       tributes(7).

       ┌─────────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬────────────────────┐
       │InterfaceAttributeValue              │
       ├─────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼────────────────────┤
       │tsearch(), tfind(), tdelete()    │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe race:rootp │
       ├─────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼────────────────────┤
       │twalk()                          │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe race:root  │
       ├─────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼────────────────────┤
       │twalk_r()                        │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe race:root  │
       ├─────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼────────────────────┤
       │tdestroy()                       │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe            │
       └─────────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴────────────────────┘

STANDARDS
       POSIX.1-2001,  POSIX.1-2008,  SVr4.   The  functions   tdestroy()   and
       twalk_r() are GNU extensions.

NOTES
       twalk()  takes  a pointer to the root, while the other functions take a
       pointer to a variable which points to the root.

       tdelete() frees the memory required for the node in the tree.  The user
       is responsible for freeing the memory for the corresponding data.

       The  example  program depends on the fact that twalk() makes no further
       reference to a node after calling the user function with argument  "en-
       dorder" or "leaf".  This works with the GNU library implementation, but
       is not in the System V documentation.

EXAMPLES
       The following program inserts twelve random numbers into a binary tree,
       where  duplicate  numbers are collapsed, then prints the numbers in or-
       der.

       #define _GNU_SOURCE     /* Expose declaration of tdestroy() */
       #include <search.h>
       #include <stddef.h>
       #include <stdio.h>
       #include <stdlib.h>
       #include <time.h>

       static void *root = NULL;

       static void *
       xmalloc(size_t n)
       {
           void *p;

           p = malloc(n);
           if (p)
               return p;
           fprintf(stderr, "insufficient memory\n");
           exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
       }

       static int
       compare(const void *pa, const void *pb)
       {
           if (*(int *) pa < *(int *) pb)
               return -1;
           if (*(int *) pa > *(int *) pb)
               return 1;
           return 0;
       }

       static void
       action(const void *nodep, VISIT which, int depth)
       {
           int *datap;

           switch (which) {
           case preorder:
               break;
           case postorder:
               datap = *(int **) nodep;
               printf("%6d\n", *datap);
               break;
           case endorder:
               break;
           case leaf:
               datap = *(int **) nodep;
               printf("%6d\n", *datap);
               break;
           }
       }

       int
       main(void)
       {
           int  *ptr;
           int  **val;

           srand(time(NULL));
           for (unsigned int i = 0; i < 12; i++) {
               ptr = xmalloc(sizeof(*ptr));
               *ptr = rand() & 0xff;
               val = tsearch(ptr, &root, compare);
               if (val == NULL)
                   exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
               if (*val != ptr)
                   free(ptr);
           }
           twalk(root, action);
           tdestroy(root, free);
           exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
       }

SEE ALSO
       bsearch(3), hsearch(3), lsearch(3), qsort(3)

Linux man-pages 6.03              2023-01-26                        tsearch(3)

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