I am implementing a tree structure in c++ with a node class like this:

class Node {
protected:
    // relations
    Node *_parent;
    std::vector<Node*> _children;

public:
    // some example method
    void someMethod(Node *node) {

        // do something with *node

        for (int i = 0; i < node->_children; i++) {
            _children[i]->myFunction;
        }
    }
}

Now, to work on the nodes in my tree I am implementing recursive functions like someMethod in my example.

It works, but I end up writing the same recursion code over and over again for every new function that works on my tree.

Is there a generic way to iterate a tree structure like I would on a plain array? Some method that returns the next object, until I'm done with the whole branch.

EDIT:

Thanks to everybody who has commented so far, with your help I could narrow down the problem. From my understanding (I'm new to c++), I need an iterator class that encapsulates the code for traversing my tree.

Accessing all tree members should be as simple as that:

for (Node<Node*>::iterator it = _node.begin(); it != _node.end(); ++it) {
    Node *node = *it;
    // do something with *node
}

Now the question is:

How do I implement such an iterator?

Pass a function pointer to the recursive function that returns the node that you are seeking.

This is the power of function pointers and function pointer arrays in C/C++.