leetcode 235, 236. Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Search Tree(二叉树的最低共同祖先）

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 p and q as the lowest node in T that has both p and q as descendants (where we allow a node to be a descendant of itself).”

Given binary search tree: root = [6,2,8,0,4,7,9,null,null,3,5]

Example 1:

Input: root = [6,2,8,0,4,7,9,null,null,3,5], p = 2, q = 8
Output: 6
Explanation: The LCA of nodes 2 and 8 is 6.
Example 2:

Input: root = [6,2,8,0,4,7,9,null,null,3,5], p = 2, q = 4
Output: 2
Explanation: The LCA of nodes 2 and 4 is 2, since a node can be a descendant of itself according to the LCA definition.

给出一棵二叉树(235是二叉搜索树）和两个节点，找出两个节点的最低共同祖先，节点自己也是自己的祖先

思路：
最简单的情况，p或q就是root，或者root是null，那么返回root就行
如果p和q分别在左子树和右子树，则返回它们的root
依次搜索左子树和右子树

/**
 * Definition for a binary tree node.
 * public class TreeNode {
 *     int val;
 *     TreeNode left;
 *     TreeNode right;
 *     TreeNode(int x) { val = x; }
 * }
 */

    public TreeNode lowestCommonAncestor(TreeNode root, TreeNode p, TreeNode q) {
        if (root == null || root == p || root == q) {
            return root;
        }
        
        TreeNode left = lowestCommonAncestor(root.left, p, q);
        TreeNode right = lowestCommonAncestor(root.right, p, q);
        if (left == null) {
            return right;
        }
        
        if (right == null) {
            return left;
        }
        
        return root;
    }

如果上面这个不好理解，
可以根据BST的特点，左子树的值 < root < 右子树的值，
当然本题p, q本身也可以是root，所以是<=
一旦出现了p.val <= root.val <= q.val 或者 q.val <= root.val <= p.val
就说明root就是要求的最小祖先。
用前序遍历即可。

class Solution {
    TreeNode node;
    public TreeNode lowestCommonAncestor(TreeNode root, TreeNode p, TreeNode q) {
        preTraversal(root, p, q);
        return node;
    }
    
    boolean preTraversal(TreeNode root, TreeNode p, TreeNode q) {
        if(root == null) return false;
        
        
        if((p.val <= root.val && q.val >= root.val) || 
           (q.val <= root.val && p.val >= root.val)) {
            node = root;
            return true;
        }
        if(preTraversal(root.left, p, q)) return true;
        if(preTraversal(root.right, p, q)) return true;
        return false;
    }
}