English Idiom in Unix: Directory Recursively

[Hans Georg Schaathun]

["Followup-To:" header set to comp.lang.python.]
On Wed, 18 May 2011 20:20:01 +0200, Raymond Wiker
  <raw at RAWMBP-2.local> wrote:
:  	I don't think anybody mentioned *binary* trees. The context was
:  directory traversal, in which case you would have nodes with an
:  arbitrary (almost) number of children.

If we are being specific, then directory trees do have parent pointers.
My point was really that «standard tree representations» is not a
well-defined concept, and having parent pointers is as standard as
not having them.

:  	Except that the chain of parent pointers *would* constitue a
:  stack. 

In the sense that the tree itself is a stack, yes.  But if we
consider the tree (or one of its branches) to be a stack, then
the original claim becomes a tautology.

But you do have a point.  Keeping a stack of nodes on the path
back to root is a great deal simpler and cheaper than a call
stack, and not really a significant expense in context.


-- 
:-- Hans Georg