What does the following statement in implementation of tries do - c++

Question

I have been trying to implement a C++ implementation of insertion of trie data-structure, working through a blog in which there are a few things I am unable to understand http://theoryofprogramming.com/2015/01/16/trie-tree-implementation/
#define ALPHABETS 26
#define CASE 'a'
#define MAX_WORD_SIZE 25
using namespace std;
struct Node
{
struct Node * parent;
struct Node * children[ALPHABETS];
vector<int> occurrences;
};
// Inserts a word 'text' into the Trie Tree
// 'trieTree' and marks it's occurence as 'index'.
void InsertWord(struct Node * trieTree, char word[], int index)
{
struct Node * traverse = trieTree;
while (*word != '\0') { // Until there is something to process
if (traverse->children[*word - CASE] == NULL) {
// There is no node in 'trieTree' corresponding to this alphabet
// Allocate using calloc(), so that components are initialised
traverse->children[*word - CASE] = (struct Node *) calloc(1, sizeof(struct Node));
traverse->children[*word - CASE]->parent = traverse; // Assigning parent
}
traverse = traverse->children[*word - CASE];
++word; // The next alphabet
}
traverse->occurrences.push_back(index); // Mark the occurence of the word
}
// Prints the 'trieTree' in a Pre-Order or a DFS manner
// which automatically results in a Lexicographical Order
void LexicographicalPrint(struct Node * trieTree, vector<char> word)
{
int i;
bool noChild = true;
if (trieTree->occurrences.size() != 0) {
// Condition trie_tree->occurrences.size() != 0,
// is a neccessary and sufficient condition to
// tell if a node is associated with a word or not
vector<char>::iterator charItr = word.begin();
while (charItr != word.end()) {
printf("%c", *charItr);
++charItr;
}
printf(" -> # index -> ");
vector<int>::iterator counter = trieTree->occurrences.begin();
// This is to print the occurences of the word
while (counter != trieTree->occurrences.end()) {
printf("%d, ", *counter);
++counter;
}
printf("\n");
}
for (i = 0; i < ALPHABETS; ++i) {
if (trieTree->children[i] != NULL) {
noChild = false;
word.push_back(CASE + i); // Select a child
// and explore everything associated with the cild
LexicographicalPrint(trieTree->children[i], word);
word.pop_back();
// Remove the alphabet as we dealt
// everything associated with it
}
}
word.pop_back();
}
int main()
{
int n, i;
vector<char> printUtil; // Utility variable to print tree
// Creating the Trie Tree using calloc
// so that the components are initialised
struct Node * trieTree = (struct Node *) calloc(1, sizeof(struct Node));
char word[MAX_WORD_SIZE];
printf("Enter the number of words-\n");
scanf("%d", &n);
for (i = 1; i <= n; ++i) {
scanf("%s", word);
InsertWord(trieTree, word, i);
}
printf("\n"); // Just to make the output more readable
LexicographicalPrint(trieTree, printUtil);
return 0;
}
I am unable to understand what this statement in insertword does:
if (traverse->children[*word - CASE] == NULL)
Also as we have initialised all the elements to 1 in the main function then how we can it be null?

Answer 1

The function InsertWord() dynamically adds a new word into the trie, and in the process, creates new nodes whenever that word's prefix does not match the prefix of another word already added in the trie.
This is exactly what your line is testing for. From what I can see, traverse is a pointer to the current Node of a prefix of the word. *word is the next character in the word after the prefix. If the node corresponding to the current k-prefix of the word doesn't have a child (pointer is NULL) with label corresponding to the next character, that means we have to allocate a new node for the next k+1-prefix of the word.