problemmediumalgorithmsleetcode-1490leetcode 1490leetcode1490

Clone N-ary Tree

MediumUpdated: Jul 7, 2025
Practice on:
LeetCode

Problem

Given a root of an N-ary tree, return a deep copy (clone) of the tree.

Each node in the n-ary tree contains a val (int) and a list (List[Node]) of its children.

class Node { public int val; public List<Node> children; }

Nary-Tree input serialization is represented in their level order traversal, each group of children is separated by the null value (See examples).

Examples

Example 1:

Input: root = [1,null,3,2,4,null,5,6]
Output: [1,null,3,2,4,null,5,6]

Example 2:

Input: root = [1,null,2,3,4,5,null,null,6,7,null,8,null,9,10,null,null,11,null,12,null,13,null,null,14]
Output: [1,null,2,3,4,5,null,null,6,7,null,8,null,9,10,null,null,11,null,12,null,13,null,null,14]

Constraints:

  • The depth of the n-ary tree is less than or equal to 1000.
  • The total number of nodes is between [0, 10^4].

Follow up: Can your solution work for the [Clone Graph Problem](clone-undirected-graph)?

Solution

Method 1 – Hash Map with DFS (Recursive Cloning)

Intuition

To clone an N-ary tree, we need to create a new node for each original node and recursively clone all its children. To avoid duplicating nodes in case of cycles (though N-ary trees don't have cycles, but for generality), we use a hash map to keep track of already cloned nodes.

Approach

  1. Use a hash map to map original nodes to their clones.
  2. For each node, if it is already cloned, return the clone.
  3. Otherwise, create a new node with the same value.
  4. Recursively clone all children and add them to the new node's children list.
  5. Return the cloned node.

Code

C++
class Node {
public:
    int val;
    vector<Node*> children;
    Node() {}
    Node(int _val) : val(_val) {}
    Node(int _val, vector<Node*> _children) : val(_val), children(_children) {}
};
class Solution {
public:
    Node* cloneTree(Node* root) {
        if (!root) return nullptr;
        unordered_map<Node*, Node*> mp;
        return dfs(root, mp);
    }
    Node* dfs(Node* node, unordered_map<Node*, Node*>& mp) {
        if (!node) return nullptr;
        if (mp.count(node)) return mp[node];
        Node* clone = new Node(node->val);
        mp[node] = clone;
        for (auto child : node->children) {
            clone->children.push_back(dfs(child, mp));
        }
        return clone;
    }
};
Go
type Node struct {
    Val int
    Children []*Node
}
func CloneTree(root *Node) *Node {
    mp := map[*Node]*Node{}
    var dfs func(*Node) *Node
    dfs = func(node *Node) *Node {
        if node == nil { return nil }
        if v, ok := mp[node]; ok { return v }
        clone := &Node{Val: node.Val}
        mp[node] = clone
        for _, child := range node.Children {
            clone.Children = append(clone.Children, dfs(child))
        }
        return clone
    }
    return dfs(root)
}
Java
class Node {
    public int val;
    public List<Node> children;
    public Node() {}
    public Node(int val) { this.val = val; }
    public Node(int val, List<Node> children) { this.val = val; this.children = children; }
}
class Solution {
    public Node cloneTree(Node root) {
        Map<Node, Node> mp = new HashMap<>();
        return dfs(root, mp);
    }
    private Node dfs(Node node, Map<Node, Node> mp) {
        if (node == null) return null;
        if (mp.containsKey(node)) return mp.get(node);
        Node clone = new Node(node.val);
        mp.put(node, clone);
        if (node.children != null) {
            clone.children = new ArrayList<>();
            for (Node child : node.children) {
                clone.children.add(dfs(child, mp));
            }
        }
        return clone;
    }
}
Kotlin
class Node(var `val`: Int) {
    var children: MutableList<Node?> = mutableListOf()
}
class Solution {
    fun cloneTree(root: Node?): Node? {
        val mp = mutableMapOf<Node, Node>()
        fun dfs(node: Node?): Node? {
            if (node == null) return null
            if (mp.containsKey(node)) return mp[node]
            val clone = Node(node.`val`)
            mp[node] = clone
            for (child in node.children) {
                clone.children.add(dfs(child))
            }
            return clone
        }
        return dfs(root)
    }
}
Python
class Node:
    def __init__(self, val: int, children: list['Node'] = None):
        self.val = val
        self.children = children if children is not None else []
class Solution:
    def cloneTree(self, root: 'Node | None') -> 'Node | None':
        mp = {}
        def dfs(node: 'Node | None') -> 'Node | None':
            if node is None:
                return None
            if node in mp:
                return mp[node]
            clone = Node(node.val)
            mp[node] = clone
            for child in node.children:
                clone.children.append(dfs(child))
            return clone
        return dfs(root)
Rust
use std::rc::Rc;
use std::cell::RefCell;
use std::collections::HashMap;
#[derive(Debug, PartialEq, Eq)]
pub struct Node {
    pub val: i32,
    pub children: Vec<Rc<RefCell<Node>>>,
}
impl Node {
    pub fn new(val: i32) -> Self {
        Node { val, children: vec![] }
    }
}
impl Solution {
    pub fn clone_tree(root: Option<Rc<RefCell<Node>>>) -> Option<Rc<RefCell<Node>>> {
        fn dfs(node: Option<Rc<RefCell<Node>>>, mp: &mut HashMap<usize, Rc<RefCell<Node>>>) -> Option<Rc<RefCell<Node>>> {
            if let Some(n) = node {
                let key = Rc::as_ptr(&n) as usize;
                if let Some(clone) = mp.get(&key) { return Some(clone.clone()); }
                let new_node = Rc::new(RefCell::new(Node::new(n.borrow().val)));
                mp.insert(key, new_node.clone());
                for child in &n.borrow().children {
                    new_node.borrow_mut().children.push(dfs(Some(child.clone()), mp).unwrap());
                }
                Some(new_node)
            } else {
                None
            }
        }
        dfs(root, &mut HashMap::new())
    }
}
TypeScript
class Node {
    val: number;
    children: Node[];
    constructor(val?: number, children?: Node[]) {
        this.val = val ?? 0;
        this.children = children ?? [];
    }
}
class Solution {
    cloneTree(root: Node | null): Node | null {
        const mp = new Map<Node, Node>();
        function dfs(node: Node | null): Node | null {
            if (!node) return null;
            if (mp.has(node)) return mp.get(node)!;
            const clone = new Node(node.val);
            mp.set(node, clone);
            for (const child of node.children) {
                clone.children.push(dfs(child)!);
            }
            return clone;
        }
        return dfs(root);
    }
}

Complexity

  • ⏰ Time complexity: O(N), where N is the number of nodes in the tree. Each node is visited once.
  • 🧺 Space complexity: O(N), for the hash map and recursion stack.

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