687 Longest Univalue Path

Given a binary tree, find the length of the longest path where each node in the path has the same value. This path may or may not pass through the root.

Note: The length of path between two nodes is represented by the number of edges between them.

Example 1:

Input:

              5
             / \
            4   5
           / \   \
          1   1   5

Output:

2

Example 2:

Input:

              1
             / \
            4   5
           / \   \
          4   4   5

Output:

2

Note: The given binary tree has not more than 10000 nodes. The height of the tree is not more than 1000.

public class LongestUnivaluePath {
    public int longestUnivaluePath(TreeNode root) {
        if (root == null) {
            return 0;
        }
        int res = 0;
        helper(root, root, res);
        return res;
    }
    
    private int helper(TreeNode node, TreeNode parent, int res) {
        if (node == null) 
            return 0;
        int left = helper(node.left, node, res);
        int right = helper(node.right, node, res);
        left = (node.left != null && node.val == node.left.val) ? left + 1 : 0;
        right = (node.right != null && node.val == node.right.val) ? right + 1 : 0;
        res = Math.max(res, left + right);
        return Math.max(left, right);
    }
}