LeetCode 236 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.

思路：首先深度遍历二叉树，找到从根节点开始到目标节点的路径。两个节点的最近公共祖先就是两个路径的交点处。

例： 节点5和8的路径分别为 3->5和3->1->8 两条链相交于3

节点6和4的路径分别为3->5->6和3->5->2->4相交于5  

代码：

/**
 * 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:
    vector<TreeNode *> path(TreeNode* root, TreeNode *p)
    {
        if (root == nullptr) return vector<TreeNode *>();
	//深度遍历到底都没有找到目标节点，说明该路径不存在目标节点
		else
		{
			if (root == p)
			{
				//某条路径上找到目标节点，不用再继续深入遍历了
				vector<TreeNode *> tempPath;
				tempPath.push_back(p);
				return tempPath;
			}
			else
			{
				vector<TreeNode *> l = path(root->left, p);
				//将该节点插入到包含目标节点的路径上，左子树或右子树，为空则不包含目标节点
				if (!l.empty())
				{
					l.push_back(root);
					return l;
				}
				else
				{
					vector<TreeNode *> r = path(root->right, p);
					if (r.empty()) return r;
					r.push_back(root);
					return r;
				}
			}
		}
    }
    TreeNode* lowestCommonAncestor(TreeNode* root, TreeNode* p, TreeNode* q) {
	//深度遍历得到两条路径
        vector<TreeNode *> pathp = path(root,p);
        vector<TreeNode *> pathq = path(root,q);
        
        vector<TreeNode *>::iterator longer,shortter;
        //寻找着两条链的公共节点
        longer = pathp.size() >= pathq.size() ? pathp.begin():pathq.begin();
        shortter = pathp.size() < pathq.size() ? pathp.begin():pathq.begin();
        
        int sub = abs((int)pathp.size() - (int)pathq.size());
        for(;sub>0;--sub)
            ++longer;
        while((*longer) != (*shortter))
            ++longer,++shortter;
        return *longer;
    }
};

这条语句必须进行类型转换，因为vector的size函数返回值为unsigned int当pathp的长度小于pathq的长度会得不到正确的结果

 int sub = abs((int)pathp.size() - (int)pathq.size());