I am currently bushing up on my data structures and basic algorithms, part of th

Question

I am currently bushing up on my data structures and basic algorithms, part of that is the Binary Tree. I do understand the algorithms, and how to implement a binary search tree and such. I do so how smart it is that we can do lookups in O(log n) time.

I am however having a hard time finding an example of when I would use a binary tree, where a hash tables would not do the same/better job. I have been doing some searching around and found that it is used for 3D graphis, something about what items are to be displayed, i do however have a hard time relating to this.

Can any one give me an example where it would be better to user a binary tree over a hash table?

Explanation / Answer

Hash tables can only tell you if an element is present or not.

Here are somethings you can do with a binary tree that you can't do wiht a hash table.

sorted traversal of the tree
find the next closest element
find all elements less than or greater than a certain value

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