LeetCode算法第7篇：235 Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Search Tree

问题描述：
　　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.

代码实现：

/**
 * Definition for a binary tree node.
 * struct TreeNode {
 *     int val;
 *     struct TreeNode *left;
 *     struct TreeNode *right;
 * };
 */
struct TreeNode* lowestCommonAncestor(struct TreeNode* root, struct TreeNode* p, struct TreeNode* q) {
    if (root == NULL || p == NULL || q == NULL)
        return NULL;

    if ((p->val <= root->val && q->val >= root->val) || (q->val <= root->val && p->val >= root->val))
        return root;
    else if (p->val < root->val && q->val < root->val)
        return lowestCommonAncestor(root->left, p, q);
    else 
        return lowestCommonAncestor(root->right, p, q);
}

总结：二叉搜索树的特点为：
　　它或者是一棵空树，或者是具有下列性质的二叉树： 若它的左子树不空，则左子树上所有结点的值均小于它的根结点的值； 若它的右子树不空，则右子树上所有结点的值均大于它的根结点的值； 它的左、右子树也分别为二叉排序树。
　　根据其特点用递归算法，一次递归分为三种情况：1、结点p和结点q分别在根结点的左右子树，或者其中一个结点是根结点，此时返回根结点；2、结点p和结点q都在根结点的左子树；3、结点p和结点q都在根结点的右子树。