Array Implementation of Binary Trees

One of the ways to represent a tree using an array is to store the nodes level-by-level, starting from the level 0.

Let us consider the complete binary tree

Disadvantages

The various demerits when representing binary trees using arrays are as follows:

1. Other than full binary trees, majority of the array entries may be empty.

2. Dynamic resizing of array is not possible.

3. Insertion and deletions of new nodes is inefficient. ( Requires considerable data movement up and down the array, which demand excessive amount of processing time.)

Advantages

The various merits of representing binary trees using arrays are as follows:

1. Any node can be accessed from any other node by calculating the index.

2. No use of pointers.