Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Search Tree -- leetcode

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.

基本思路：

思路相当于在二叉搜索树查找一个结点：  当待查值小于该结点时，进入左子树继续搜索。大于该结点时，进入其右子树搜索。

此题，相当于，同时在搜索两个值。 找出搜索路径开始出现分歧的结点。

比如搜索第一个值，需要进入左子树，而搜索另一个值，需要进入右子树。 搜索路径在此结点分道扬镳了。

/**
 * Definition for a binary tree node.
 * struct TreeNode {
 *     int val;
 *     TreeNode *left;
 *     TreeNode *right;
 *     TreeNode(int x) : val(x), left(NULL), right(NULL) {}
 * };
 */
class Solution {
public:
    TreeNode* lowestCommonAncestor(TreeNode* root, TreeNode* p, TreeNode* q) {
        if (!root || root->val == p->val || root->val == q->val)
            return root;
        
        TreeNode *choice_p = p->val < root->val ? root->left : root->right;
        TreeNode *choice_q = q->val < root->val ? root->left : root->right;
        if (choice_p == choice_q)
            return lowestCommonAncestor(choice_p, p, q);
        else
            return root;
    }
};

写成迭代为：

class Solution {
public:
    TreeNode* lowestCommonAncestor(TreeNode* root, TreeNode* p, TreeNode* q) {
        while (root) {
            if (p->val < root->val && q->val < root->val)
                root = root->left;
            else if (p->val > root->val && q->val > root->val)
                root = root->right;
            else
                break;
        }
        return root;
    }
};