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Coding & Algorithms questions require understanding of core concepts and practice. PracHub provides solutions with explanations to help you master coding & algorithms interviews.

What difficulty level is this interview question?

This is a medium difficulty Coding & Algorithms question, commonly asked during Onsite rounds at Crusoe.

What role is this question designed for?

This question is commonly asked for Software Engineer candidates at Crusoe during technical interviews.

Print a binary tree as aligned text | Crusoe Interview Question

Quick Overview

This question evaluates competence in binary tree data structures, spatial layout and string formatting by requiring conversion of a hierarchical tree into a constrained ASCII representation with placeholder handling for missing children; domain: Coding & Algorithms.

Implement a function that prints (or returns) an ASCII layout of a binary tree.

Requirements:

Each node has a string value (assume it contains no spaces).
If a node is missing a left or right child, print a placeholder * in that child position.
The bottom row represents the leaf level of a full binary tree of height h (where h is the height of the input tree). It therefore has 2^(h-1) leaf slots.
Leaf slots must be separated by exactly one space.
For every level above the leaves, each parent node must be positioned exactly in the middle (horizontally) between its left-child slot and right-child slot.

Return the output as a list of strings (one per level from top/root to bottom/leaves), or print it line by line.

Example (one possible formatting): If the tree is:

root = A
A.left = B , A.right = C
B.right = D (B.left is null)

Then the bottom level has 4 slots: * D * * (with single spaces), and parents are centered above their two children slots.

Explain any assumptions you make about node value width (e.g., single character vs variable-length strings).

Print a binary tree as aligned text

Quick Overview

Print a binary tree as aligned text

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