How to create a new N-ary ExpressionTree object from a list of nodes and leaves?

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Code newbie here, and I am creating a project in Python.

I have a class called ExpressionTree which is, an N-ary expression tree, such that each node is not merely restricted to having only two children; it can have more than 2, but not less than 2.

The only operators I would use in this tree are "+" and "-" (but the code should work for any operator).

All leaves are either a single letter string, or an integer, and all parents are either "+" or "-".

The method I am trying to create is called create_tree, which takes in a list called lst, for which the type is: List[List[Union[int, str]]], and returns a successfully created ExpressionTree that was made from the parameter: lst.

Each list in lst represents a level, but for each operator in the list, the next lists are the children of each operator. For example, if lst = [[+], [+, +], [1, 2], [3, 4]], then the Tree should look something like:

Tree 1

On a more nested example, if I were to run create_class([[+], [3, +, +], [5, *], [b, c], [6, a]]), the Tree I should be getting is:

Tree 2

I know that a Queue would be very useful, but I do not know where to start. I don't think this code necessarily would need recursion, but it could work with it as well if implemented correctly. Any help with the code is immensely appreciated. Thanks in advance!

1 Answers

You can recursively partition the list to build the tree:

from collections import deque
def to_tree(d):
   k = [[i, [] if i not in {'+', '*'} else d.popleft()] for i in d.popleft()]
   for i in range(len(k)):
     if k[i][0] in {'+', '*'}: 
        d = deque([k[i][-1], *d])
        k[i][-1] = k[i][-1] if len(d) == 1 else to_tree(d)
   return [[a, b] if b else a for a, b in k]
   

lst = [['+'], ['+', '+'], ['1', '2'], ['3', '4']]
lst1 = [['+'], ['3', '+', '+'], ['5', '*'], ['b', 'c'], ['6', 'a']]
lst2 = [['+'], ['3', 'c', '+'], ['5', 'a']]
print(to_tree(deque(lst)))
print(to_tree(deque(lst1)))
print(to_tree(deque(lst2)))

Output:

[['+', [['+', ['1', '2']], ['+', ['3', '4']]]]]
[['+', ['3', ['+', ['5', ['*', ['6', 'a']]]], ['+', ['b', 'c']]]]]
[['+', ['3', 'c', ['+', ['5', 'a']]]]]
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