Finding the height of a BST without returning anything from the function - c++

Question

I am trying to learn various data structures, and I am currently learning about trees, namely binary search trees. I have gotten most every function down, with the exception of the get height function. I found quite a lot of pseudo code on how to write this recursively, and returning the recursive path to find the height. This is what I came up with:
int getHeight(struct node* node)
{
if (node == nullptr)
return 0;
else
{
int leftDepth = getHeight(node->left);
int rightDepth = getHeight(node->right);
if (leftDepth > rightDepth)
return(leftDepth+1);
else return(rightDepth+1);
}
}
This is fine, but I wanted to stay consistent with how I wrote out my other functions. The other functions are templates, that each have a public wrapper function that is called in the driver. Then, this wrapper calls the private function that actually preforms the action that is intended. So, what I have for the get height is this:
template <typename T>
int binarySearch<T>::getHeight()
{
int height = 0;
getHeight(rootNode, height, 0);
return height;
}
template <typename T>
void binarySearch<T>::getHeight(Node *node, int &max, int layer)
{
int tempRight = 0;
int tempLeft = 0;
if (node == nullptr)
{
tempRight = -1;
tempLeft = -1;
max--;
}
else
{
if (node->left != nullptr)
{
tempLeft = 1;
getHeight(node->left, max, layer);
}
if (node->right != nullptr)
{
tempRight = 1;
getHeight(node->right, max, layer);
}
}
if (tempLeft > tempRight)
{
max++;
}
else
{
max++;
}
}
I intended to do something similar to a depth first search, in that I would increment a layer counter, to test to see if I am on the same layer, and if I am, to only increment the max counter once. I am a bit confused on the logical flow of the recursive get height, so my implementation makes little to no sense. Can someone point me in the right direction to information regarding the breakdown of the get height recursive function, or assist in correcting my poor attempt at doing what I intended? Thanks!

Answer 1

I'm not really sure, what you want to achieve, but here's a shot:
void getHeight(struct node* node, int &max, int layer) {
if (!node) return;
if (layer>max) {
max = layer;
}
getHeight(node->left, max, layer+1);
getHeight(node->right, max, layer+1);
}
You need to initialize max to 0 before calling getHeight.