Both a binary tree and a binary search tree are types of tree structures used in computer science, but they have different characteristics and purposes.
A binary tree is a tree structure in which each node has at most two child nodes, referred to as the left child and the right child. The root of the tree is the topmost node, and all other nodes are descendants of the root. A binary tree can be used to represent hierarchical relationships between data or to perform operations such as traversals or searches.
A binary search tree (BST), on the other hand, is a specific type of binary tree in which the value of each node is greater than all values in its left subtree and less than all values in its right subtree. This ordering property makes binary search trees useful for efficient searching and sorting algorithms. In a BST, nodes with smaller values are located on the left side of the tree, while nodes with larger values are located on the right side of the tree.
In summary, the key difference between a binary tree and a binary search tree is that a binary search tree is a type of binary tree that has an additional ordering property that makes it useful for searching and sorting operations.
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