Browse Curriculum
FAANGPrep Sprint
Medium

Zigzag Level Order Traversal

Traverse levels in alternating order (left-to-right, then right-to-left).

Problem Understanding

Given the root of a binary tree, return the zigzag level order traversal of its nodes' values.

  • Level 0: Left -> Right
  • Level 1: Right -> Left
  • Level 2: Left -> Right
  • ...

Algorithm Strategy

We use standard BFS with a Queue to process levels one by one.

Handling Zigzag:

  1. Collect all values for the current level into a list.
  2. Check Depth: If the current level depth is Odd, reverse the list before adding it to results.
  3. Alternative: Use a Deque for the current level list, using push_front or push_back depending on depth.

Interactive Visualization

Step 1 / 1
Empty Heap

Initializing...

1x

Observe the snake-like pattern of the traversal as nodes are visited.

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