Breadth-First Search to get Tree Depth

get-depth.js

//pseudocode
function Node() {
    this.children = [];
    var me = this;
    this.hasChildren = function () {
        return me.children.length > 0;
    }
}

function getDepth(node, count, max) {
   count = count || 0;
   max = max || 0;
   if (node.hasChildren()) {
     count++;
     max = Math.max(max, count);
     for (var i = 0; i < node.children.length; i++) {
         return getDepth(node.children[i], count, max);
     }
   }
   else {
       max = Math.max(max, count);
   }
   return ++max;
}

function insertNodes(node, count) {
    count = count || 3;
    node = node || new Node();
    for (var i = 0; i < count; i++) {
      node.children.push(new Node());
    }
    return node;
}

function getSampleTree() {
    var root = new Node();
    root = insertNodes(root);
    root.children[0] = insertNodes(root.children[0]);//adds extra depth
    return root;
}

var tree = getSampleTree();
console.log(getDepth(tree));

getSampleTree and insertNodes are only used to generate a sample tree for test purposes ... please feel free to modify.

The getDepth(tree) code returns 3 when executed