Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Tree
Given a binary tree, find the lowest common ancestor (LCA) of two given nodes in the tree.
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).”
_______3______ / \ ___5__ ___1__ / \ / \ 6 _2 0 8 / \ 7 4
For example, the lowest common ancestor (LCA) of nodes 5
and 1
is 3
. Another example is LCA of nodes 5
and 4
is 5
, since a node can be a descendant of itself according to the LCA definition.
此时的二叉树为普通的二叉树,无法像BST树一样可以利用BST的特性进行求解了。
思路:递归在root结点的左右子树中搜索p和q,如果两边都搜索成功,说明root即为LCA,否则,如果p和q为上下级关系时,此时只能搜索到p或者q(因为一旦搜索成功即停止搜索,递归返回了),返回后的结点p或者q即为要找的LCA。
代码:
class Solution(object):
def lowestCommonAncestor(self, root, p, q):
"""
:type root: TreeNode
:type p: TreeNode
:type q: TreeNode
:rtype: TreeNode
"""
if not root or root == p or root == q:
return root
l = self.lowestCommonAncestor(root.left, p, q)
r = self.lowestCommonAncestor(root.right, p, q)
# 如果l和r都存在,说明root是LCA;否则,返回的是只会是l或者r,表示p和q为上下级关系
return root if l and r else (l if l else r)