235.Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Search Tree

Given a binary search tree (BST), find the lowest common ancestor (LCA) of two given nodes in the BST.

According to the definition of LCA on Wikipedia: “The lowest common ancestor is defined between two nodes v and w as the lowest node in T that has both v and w as descendants (where we allow a node to be a descendant of itself).”

        _______6______
       /              \
    ___2__          ___8__
   /      \        /      \
   0      _4       7       9
         /  \
         3   5

For example, the lowest common ancestor (LCA) of nodes 2 and 8 is 6. Another example is LCA of nodes 2 and 4 is 2, since a node can be a descendant of itself according to the LCA definition.

/**
 * Definition for a binary tree node.
 * public class TreeNode {
 *     int val;
 *     TreeNode left;
 *     TreeNode right;
 *     TreeNode(int x) { val = x; }
 * }
 */
public class Solution {
    /*
     * 递归遍历整棵树，如果找到其中一个，则向上返回这个节点（此节点以下的节点不再遍历）
     * 如果某节点的左右子节点都不为空，那么可以判断此节点是p、q节点的最小祖先
     * 如果某节点的左子节点或右子节点不为空，那么可以判断此节点是p或q的祖先或者p和q的最小祖先
     */
    public TreeNode lowestCommonAncestor(TreeNode root, TreeNode p, TreeNode q) {
        TreeNode left;
        TreeNode right;
        
        if(root == null)
            return null;
        if(root.val == p.val || root.val == q.val)
            return root;
        
        left = lowestCommonAncestor(root.left, p, q);
        right = lowestCommonAncestor(root.right, p, q);
        
        if(left != null && right != null)
            return root;
        if(left == null && right != null)
            return right;
        if(left != null && right == null)
            return left;
        return null;
    }
}