Question:
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.
Solution:
/**
* Definition for a binary tree node.
* public class TreeNode {
* int val;
* TreeNode left;
* TreeNode right;
* TreeNode(int x) { val = x; }
* }
*/
public class Solution {
public TreeNode lowestCommonAncestor(TreeNode root, TreeNode p, TreeNode q) {
if(root==null||root==p||root==q)
return root;
TreeNode left=lowestCommonAncestor(root.left,p,q);
TreeNode right=lowestCommonAncestor(root.right,p,q);
if(left!=null)
{
if(right!=null)
return root;
else
return left;
}
if(right!=null)
{
if(left!=null)
return root;
else
return right;
}
return null;
}
}