A leaf node is a node in a tree with no children. In a rooted tree, every other node leads toward descendants, while a leaf marks an endpoint of a path. section 7.1
To place leaf nodes in a tree:
- A tree has a root, which has no parent. section 7.1
- Nodes may have children, but each node has at most one parent. section 7.1
- A node becomes a leaf when it has no children. section 7.1
Leaf nodes in Huffman coding
Huffman coding places letters only at leaf nodes. Reading binary digits from the root follows one unique path to a leaf, so each letter receives one unambiguous code and decoding cannot stop at an intermediate node. section 7.6
