Delete a Node with One Child in a Binary Search Tree

Now that we can delete leaf nodes let's move on to the second case: deleting a node with one child. For this case, say we have a tree with the following nodes 1 — 2 — 3 where 1 is the root. To delete 2, we simply need to make the right reference in 1 point to 3. More generally to delete a node with only one child, we make that node's parent reference the next node in the tree.

Test

{{test}}

Boilerplate code

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;
  this.remove = function(value) {
    if (this.root === null) {
      return null;
    }
    var target;
    var parent = null;
    // Find the target value and its parent
    (function findValue(node = this.root) {
      if (value == node.value) {
        target = node;
      } else if (value < node.value && node.left !== null) {
        parent = node;
        return findValue(node.left);
      } else if (value < node.value && node.left === null) {
        return null;
      } else if (value > node.value && node.right !== null) {
        parent = node;
        return findValue(node.right);
      } else {
        return null;
      }
    }.bind(this)());
    if (target === null) {
      return null;
    }
    // Count the children of the target to delete
    var children =
      (target.left !== null ? 1 : 0) + (target.right !== null ? 1 : 0);
    // Case 1: Target has no children
    if (children === 0) {
      if (target == this.root) {
        this.root = null;
      } else {
        if (parent.left == target) {
          parent.left = null;
        } else {
          parent.right = null;
        }
      }
    }
    // Case 2: Target has one child
    // Only change code below this line
  };
}

Console output

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