Preorder Traversal

Visit the root before each subtree, producing root-left-right order.

Algorithm

The canonical tree is 4(2(1,3),6(5,7)), so this Bash DSA implementation can be compared directly with the rest of the DSA track.

Basic Implementation

basic.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash
declare -A val left right
new_node() { local id=$1 value=$2 l=${3:-0} r=${4:-0}; val[$id]=$value; left[$id]=$l; right[$id]=$r; }
render() {
  local id=$1
  if [[ "$id" == "0" || -z "$id" ]]; then printf "_"; return; fi
  if [[ "${left[$id]}" == "0" && "${right[$id]}" == "0" ]]; then printf "%s" "${val[$id]}"; return; fi
  printf "%s(" "${val[$id]}"; render "${left[$id]}"; printf ","; render "${right[$id]}"; printf ")"
}
sample_tree() {
  new_node 1 1; new_node 3 3; new_node 2 2 1 3
  new_node 5 5; new_node 7 7; new_node 6 6 5 7
  new_node 4 4 2 6
}
list_string() {
  local joined=""
  for value in "$@"; do
    [[ -n "$joined" ]] && joined+=", "
    joined+="$value"
  done
  printf '[%s]' "$joined"
}
sample_tree
output=()
preorder() { local id=$1; [[ "$id" == "0" ]] && return; output+=("${val[$id]}"); preorder "${left[$id]}"; preorder "${right[$id]}"; }
preorder 4
list_string "${output[@]}"; echo

Complexity

Time: O(n)
Space: O(h) recursion stack

Implementation notes

Render tree structure explicitly instead of printing node objects.
The replay highlights the node, traversal state, queue, path, or search cursor that changes at each step.

preorder Preorder records the current node before visiting left and right subtrees.