Leetcode: Construct Binary Tree from Preorder and Inorder Traversal

Given preorder and inorder traversal of a tree, construct the binary tree.

Note:

You may assume that duplicates do not exist in the tree.

Example: 

preorder: ABDEFCG

inorder: DBEFAGC

From preorder, it's clear that the root of the tree is A. Look for the position of A in inorder array, all the elements going before A are left child of A, and all elements following after A are right child of A. Then look back to the preorder array, all ellements from B to F are left child, and C to G are right child. So the next root can be found according to the preorder array, and whether that root is left or right child can be determined by the inorder array.

/**
 * Definition for binary tree
 * public class TreeNode {
 *     int val;
 *     TreeNode left;
 *     TreeNode right;
 *     TreeNode(int x) { val = x; }
 * }
 */
public class Solution {
    public TreeNode buildTree(int[] preorder, int[] inorder) {
        if (preorder == null || inorder == null || preorder.length == 0 || inorder.length == 0) {
            return null;
        }
        return helperTree(preorder, 0, preorder.length - 1, inorder, 0, inorder.length - 1);
    }
    
    private TreeNode helperTree(int[] preorder, int prestart, int preend,
    		int[] inorder, int instart, int inend) {
    	if (instart > inend) {
    		return null;
    	}
    	
    	TreeNode node = new TreeNode(preorder[prestart]);
    	int pos = position(inorder, instart, inend, preorder[prestart]);
    	node.left = helperTree(preorder, prestart + 1, prestart + pos - instart, inorder, instart, pos - 1);
    	node.right = helperTree(preorder, prestart + pos - instart + 1, preend, inorder, pos + 1, inend);
    	return node;
    }
    
    private int position(int[] array, int start, int end, int key) {
    	for (int i = start; i <= end; i++) {
    		if (array[i] == key) {
    			return i;
    		}
    	}
    	return -1;
    }
}