Why add 1 when calculating height of AVL tree?

user_17127515 0
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While updating the heights of my subtrees in an AVL rotation implementation, I noticed in the example the code that the height function is

x->height = max(height(x->left), height(x->right)) +1;

Does anyone know where the +1 comes from and why?

Thanks!

avl-tree c++
1 Answers

Without seeing any actual code, I'm assuming max(height(x->left, height(x->right) doesn't include the node you are calling the function on. Height function returns whichever subtree is higher and + 1 for your current node to get the total height.

user_145979260
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