Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Search Tree

Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Search Tree

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.

 

Solution

The root node is an ancestor to all nodes because there is a path from it to all other nodes. Therefore, you can start at the root node and follow a path through the common ancestors of both nodes. When your target values are both less than the current node, you go left. When they are both greater, you go right. The first node you encounter that is between your target values is the lowest common ancestor.

/**
 * 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) {
        TreeNode cur = root;
        while (cur != null) {
            if (p.val < cur.val && q.val < cur.val)
                cur = cur.left;
            
            else if (p.val > cur.val && q.val > cur.val)
                cur = cur.right;
            
            else
                return cur;
        }
        
        return null;
    }
}