Splay Trees

• In balanced tree schemes, explicit rules are

followed to ensure balance.
• In splay trees, there are no such rules.
• Search, insert, and delete operations are like in
binary search trees, except at the end of each
operation a special step called splaying is done.
• Splaying ensures that all operations take O(lg n)
amortized time.
• First, a quick review of BST operations…
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 Splaying
• In splay trees, after performing an ordinary
BST Search, Insert, or Delete, a splay
operation is performed on some node x (as
described later).
• The splay operation moves x to the root of the
tree.
• The splay operation consists of sub-operations
called zig-zig, zig-zag, and zig.

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 Splaying
•Bring the node being accessed to the root of the
tree, when accessing it, through one or more
splay steps.
•A splay step can be:
•Zig Zag Single Rotation

•Zig-zig Zag-zag
•Zig-zag Zag-zig Double Rotation

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 Splaying Cases
• Node being accessed (n) is:
– the root
– a child of the root
Do single rotation: Zig or Zag pattern
– has both a parent (p) and a grandparent (g)
Double rotations:
(i) Zig-zig or Zag-zag pattern:
g  p  n is left-left or right-right
(ii) Zig-zag pattern:
g  p  n is left-right or right-left

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 Case 0: Access root

• When the node is root

root root

n n

X Y X Y

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 Case 1: Access child of root:

• Zig (AVL single rotation) - Demo

Zig root
p

n Z

X Y

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 Case 1: Access child of root

• Zig and Zag (AVL single rotations)

root root
p Zig – right rotation n

n Z Zag – left rotation p

X

X Y
Y Z

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 Case 2: Access (LR, RL) grandchild:
• Zig-Zag (AVL double rotation)
g

n
X p

g p
n W

X Y Z W
Y Z

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 Case 2: Access (LR, RL) grandchild:
• Zig-Zag (AVL double rotation)
g

Zig
p
X

n W

Y Z

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 Case 2: Access (LR, RL) grandchild:
• Zig-Zag (AVL double rotation)
Zag
g

X n

p
Y

Z W
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 Case 3: Access (LL, RR) grandchild:
• Zag-Zag (different from AVL)

g 1 n
2
p p
W
Z

X n g
Y

Y Z
W X
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 Zig-Zig
•x has a grandparent
z x
10 30
y y
20 20
x z
T1 30 10 T4

T2 T3

T3 T4 T1 T2

• (Symmetric case too)

• Note: x’s depth decreases by two.
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 Zig-Zag
• x has a grandparent

z x
10 20
y
30
x z y
T1 20 10 30

T4

T2 T3 T1 T2 T3 T4

• (Symmetric case too) Note: x’s depth decreases by two.

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 Zig
• x has no grandparent (so, y is the root)
• Note: w could be NIL
y x
10 20
x
20
w y w
T1 30 10 30

T2

T3 T4 T1 T2 T3 T4

• (Symmetric case too)

• Note: x’s depth decreases by one.

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 Top Down Splay Trees

• Works by starting at the top and working

down to produce a similar result.
• All of the nodes lower than the target are put
into one tree and all of the nodes greater than
the target are put into another tree then it is
recombined.

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 Top Down Splaying
• Example

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 Top Down Splaying
• Example

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 Top Down Splaying
• Example

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 Complete Example
44

• Splay 78 50

17 88

32 65 97
• Zig-Zag
28 54 82

z
29 76
y
80

x 78
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 Complete Example
44
• Splay 78 50

17 88

32 65 97
• Zig-Zag
28 54 82

29 x
78

z 76 80 y

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 Complete Example
44
• Splay 78 50

17 88

32 z 65 97
• Zig-Zag y
28 54 82

29
78 x
76 80

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 Complete Example
44
• Splay 78 50

17 88

32 x 78 97
• Zig-Zag
28 z 65 y 82

29 54 76 80

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 Complete Example
44
z
• Splay 78 50

17 88 y

32 x 78 97
• Zig-Zag
28 65 82

29 54 76 80

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 Complete Example
44
x
• Splay 78 78

17 50 z 88 y

82
32 97
65
• Zig-Zag
80
28
54 76

29

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 Complete Example
y 44

• Splay 78 78
x

17 50 88 w
82
32 97
65
• Zag -Zag
80
28
54 76

29

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 Complete Example
• Splay 78 78 x
y 44

17 50 88 w

• Zag -Zag 82
32 97
65
80
28
54 76

29

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 Result of splaying
• The result is a binary tree, with the left subtree
having all keys less than the root, and the
right subtree having keys greater than the
root.
• Also, the final tree is “more balanced” than the
original.
• However, if an operation near the root is done,
the tree can become less balanced.

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 When to Splay
•Search
– Successful: Splay node where key was found.
– Unsuccessful: Splay last-visited internal node (i.e., last node with
a key).
•Insert:
– Splay newly added node.
•Delete:
– Splay parent of removed node (which is either the node with the
deleted key or its successor).
•Note: All operations run in O(h) time, for a tree of height h.

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 Splaying Example:
Find(6)
1 1

2 2
zig-zig
3 3
Find(6)
4 6

5 5

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4 29
 Contd.,
1 1

2 6
zig-zig
3 3

6 2 5

5 4

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 Contd.,
• 6 splayed out!
1 6

6 zig 1

3 3

2 5 2 5

4 4
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 Find (4)
6 6

1 1
zig-zag
3 4
Find(4)
2 5 3 5

4 2

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 Contd.,
• 4 splayed out!
6 4

1 zig-zag 1 6

4 3 5

3 5 2

2
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 Why Splaying Helps
• If a node n on the access path is at depth d before the splay, it’s
at about depth d/2 after the splay
– Exceptions are the root, the child of the root, and the node splayed

• Overall, nodes which are below nodes on the access path tend
to move closer to the root

• Splaying gets amortized O(log n) performance. (Maybe not now,

but soon, and for the rest of the operations.)

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 Splay Operations: Find
• Find the node in normal BST manner
• Splay the node to the root

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 Splitting in Splay Trees
How can we split?
– We have the splay operation.
– We can find x or the parent of where x should be.
– We can splay it to the root.
– Now, what’s true about the left subtree of the root?
– And the right?

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 Split

split(x)

splay
T L R

OR

L R L R
x >x <x x
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 Back to Insert
x
split(x)
L R
<x >x L R

void insert(Node *& root, Object x)

{
Node * left, * right;
split(root, left, right, x);
root = new Node(x, left, right);
}

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 Splay Operations: Delete

x
find(x) delete x
L R
L R <x >x

Now what?

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 Join
Join(L, R): given two trees such that L < R, merge them

L
splay
L R R

Splay on the maximum element in L, then attach R

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 Delete Completed
x
find(x) delete x
L R
T L R <x >x

Join(L,R)

T-x
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 Insert Example
4 4 6
6
split(5) 1 6 1 9
1 9
2 9 2 7
4 7
7
2 5
4 6
• Insert (5)
1 9

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2 7 42
 Delete Example
4 6

6
1 6 1 9
1 9 find(4)
2 9 2 7
4 7 Find max
7

2 2 2

1 6 1 6

• Delete (4) 9 9

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 Splay Tree Summary
•Can be shown that any M consecutive operations starting from
an empty tree take at most O(M log(N))

–All splay tree operations run in amortized O(log n) time

•O(N) operations can occur, but splaying makes them infrequent

•Implements most-recently used (MRU) logic

–Splay tree structure is self-tuning

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