Hello,

First of all, excuse my English =)
Warning: wall of text\code.

I must say I have some experience in Java and long forgotten C++, so right now I have some problems implementing the Huffman coding.

The algorithm goes like this:
I create an array of 255 elements to represent each char. Next I iterate through my string and increment corresponding char values. Then I go through the array and whenever I found anything greater then zero I create a new instance of my LeafNode class and push it onto priority queue. The LeafNode overloads the "<" operator to make the priority queue work in a way that nodes with least frequent characters are on the top of the queue. At the same time I push all the new LeafNodes to an ordinary vector, just to provide the list of Huffman codes in the end.

The next step is basically the Huffman algorithm. I pop 2 elements from the top of the queue and create a new one (using special InternalNode class) with frequency value equal to the sum of frequency values of those popped. I assign right and left childs and parent links. And then I push the new InternalNode onto the queue.

The problem lies somewhere here as I discovered, that for example all of my LeafNodes have the exactly same parent at address 0x6 and it is inaccessible. Moreover, when I tried to go from the root, sometimes the parents or child of random nodes where inaccessible as well.

Here is my code:

#ifndef HUFF_NODE
#define HUFF_NODE

class Node 
{
	public:
		int freq;
		Node* parent;
		Node() { freq = 0; }		
		Node(const int f) : freq(f) { parent = NULL; }		
		Node(const Node &node) { freq = node.freq; parent = node.parent; }
		bool operator < (const Node &other) const {	return freq > other.freq; }
};

#endif
#ifndef HUFF_LEAF_NODE
#define HUFF_LEAF_NODE

#include "Node.h"

class LeafNode : public Node 
{
	public:
		char value;
		LeafNode(const int f, const char v) : value(v) { freq = f; }		
};

#endif
#ifndef HUFF_INTERNAL_NODE
#define HUFF_INTERNAL_NODE

#include "Node.h"

class InternalNode : public Node 
{
	public:
		Node* left;
		Node* right;
		InternalNode(const int f) { freq = f; }
		InternalNode(const Node &node) { freq = node.freq; parent = node.parent; }
		InternalNode(const InternalNode &node) { freq = node.freq; parent = node.parent; left = node.left; right = node.right;}
};

#endif

And the main thing:

#include <iostream>
#include <queue>
#include <string>
#include <vector>
#include "Node.h"
#include "LeafNode.h"
#include "InternalNode.h"


int main() 
{
	std::priority_queue <Node> que;
	std::vector <LeafNode> symbols;
	std::string str = "abracadabra";	
	int a[255];
	for (int i = 0; i < 255; ++i) {
		a[i] = 0;
	}

	for (int i = 0; i < str.length(); ++i) {
		++a[str[i]];
	}
	
	std::cout << "Original frequences:\n";
	for (int i = 0; i < 255; ++i) {
		if (a[i] > 0) {
			std::cout << char(i) << " : " << a[i] << "\n";
			LeafNode leafNode(a[i], char(i));
			que.push(leafNode);
			symbols.push_back(leafNode);
		}
	}
	
	//std::cout << que.size() << "\n";
	
	while (que.size() != 1) {	
		Node* leftNode = new Node(que.top());
		que.pop();
		std::cout << leftNode->freq << "\n";
		Node* rightNode = new Node(que.top());
		que.pop();
		std::cout << rightNode->freq << "\n";
		
		
		int sum = leftNode->freq + rightNode->freq;
		InternalNode* parentNode = new InternalNode(sum);
		parentNode->left = leftNode;
		parentNode->right = rightNode;
		leftNode->parent = parentNode;
		rightNode->parent = parentNode;
		
		std::cout << leftNode << " " << rightNode << " " << parentNode << "\n";

		InternalNode temp = InternalNode(sum);
		temp.left = parentNode->left;
		temp.right = parentNode->right;
		que.push(temp);
	}
	//std::cout << que.top().freq << "\n";
	
	std::cout << "Huffman codes:\n";
	for (int i = 0; i < symbols.size(); ++i) {
		LeafNode leafNode = symbols.at(i);
		std::cout << leafNode.value << " : ";
		std::cout << leafNode.parent << "\n";
		
		std::queue <int> temp;
		InternalNode* parent = (InternalNode*)leafNode.parent;
		Node* node = &((Node)leafNode);
		while (parent != NULL) {
			temp.push(node->freq);
			node = parent;
			parent = (InternalNode*)parent->parent;
		}
		
		while(!temp.empty()) {
			std::cout << temp.front();
			temp.pop();
		}
		
		std::cout << "\n";
	}
	

}

I believe the trouble is somewhere here:

while (que.size() != 1) {	
	Node* leftNode = new Node(que.top());
	que.pop();
	std::cout << leftNode->freq << "\n";
	Node* rightNode = new Node(que.top());
	que.pop();
	std::cout << rightNode->freq << "\n";
	
	
	int sum = leftNode->freq + rightNode->freq;
	InternalNode* parentNode = new InternalNode(sum);
	parentNode->left = leftNode;
	parentNode->right = rightNode;
	leftNode->parent = parentNode;
	rightNode->parent = parentNode;
	
	std::cout << leftNode << " " << rightNode << " " << parentNode << "\n";

	InternalNode temp = InternalNode(sum);
	temp.left = parentNode->left;
	temp.right = parentNode->right;
	que.push(temp);
}

This code may look strange, but it's due to fact that I've been trying to solve this problem for about 4 hours without completely destroying my code and idea(because intuitively it feels right and I am sure I would have already implemented this in Java if needed). I tried numerous approaches using both pointers and normal objects, creating various types of constructors. Some of them aren't accepted by compiler (as I tried to create prirority_queue <Node*>) some of them result in segmentation fault errors and some of them display really weird thing in output.

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All 3 Replies

I did not spot anything obvious but in the main
line 36
your while looks a little dangerous while(que.size() != 1) I would have expected while(que.size() > 1) as you are poping off two values.
I suspect that changing this will have no effect

When you create your new InternalNodes for temp
there is not a new() so the temp pointer will not point to valid memory you probably could do with cleaning up your new();
with delete

But I am probably missing the exact error

The while loop condition works fine atm. But thanks for pointing this out anyway.

Actually the temp was just a failed attempt to solve the problem. I just was not sure which code should I provide because none works.

If I try to push the objects created using new like this

while (que.size() != 1) {
	Node right = que.top();
	que.pop();
	Node left = que.top();
	que.pop();
	InternalNode* parent = new InternalNode(right.freq + left.freq);
	right.parent = parent;
	left.parent = parent;
	parent->right = &right;
	parent->left = &left;
	
	que.push(parent);
}

I compilation error
"invalid conversion from 'InternalNode*' to int" at line 12
and it kinda makes sense because queue can store only 'InternalNode' objects.

I did not get how are u gonna use delete in that case tho.

Problem solved.

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