NIST

red-black tree

(data structure)

Definition: A nearly-balanced tree that uses an extra bit per node to maintain balance. No leaf is more than twice as far from the root as any other.

Formal Definition: A red-black tree with n internal nodes has height at most 2log2(n+1).

Also known as symmetric binary B-tree.

Generalization (I am a kind of ...)
B-tree.

Specialization (... is a kind of me.)
AVL tree.

Aggregate child (... is a part of or used in me.)
left rotation, right rotation.

See also height-balanced tree.

Note: The extra bit "colors" the node red or black, hence the name. These were called "symmetric binary B-trees" when first invented. The red/black naming and explanation was given by Guibas and Sedgewick.

An AVL tree is at least as balanced as a red-black tree.

Author: PEB

Implementation

analysis, explanation, examples, and code (C). Ben Pfaff's libavl (C) including pointers to other implementations.

More information

Rudolf Bayer, Symmetric Binary B-Trees: Data Structures and Maintenance Algorithms, Acta Informatica, 1:290-306, 1972.
Leo J. Guibas and Robert Sedgewick, A Dichromatic Framework for Balanced Trees, Proceedings of the 19th Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science, pages 8-21. IEEE Computer Society, 1978.


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If you have suggestions, corrections, or comments, please get in touch with Paul Black.

Entry modified 13 April 2015.
HTML page formatted Mon Apr 13 11:42:33 2015.

Cite this as:
Paul E. Black, "red-black tree", in Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures [online], Vreda Pieterse and Paul E. Black, eds. 13 April 2015. (accessed TODAY) Available from: http://www.nist.gov/dads/HTML/redblack.html