A unified approach to coding labeled trees

We consider the problem of coding labeled trees by means of strings of node labels and we present a unified approach based on a reduction of both coding and decoding to integer (radix) sorting. Applying this approach to four well-known codes introduced by Prufer [18], Neville [17], and Deo and Micikevicius [5], we close some open problems. With respect to coding, our general sequential algorithm requires optimal linear time, thus solving the problem of optimally computing the second code presented by Neville. The algorithm can be parallelized on the EREW PRAM model, so as to work in O(log n) time using O(n) or O(nrootlog n) operations, depending on the code. With respect to decoding, the problem of finding an optimal sequential algorithm for the second Neville code was also open, and our general scheme solves it. Furthermore, in a parallel setting our scheme yields the first efficient decoding algorithms for the codes in [5] and [17].