Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Tree leetcode236

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.

题目意思是求给定二叉树的最小公共祖先，不同于二叉搜索树，二叉树没有左节点小于根节点，右节点大于根节点的特性。

思路是记录每个节点的深度（depth）和该节点的双亲节点（parent），再把要求的两个节点p，q向上寻找共同的祖先直到parent[p]==parent[q]。

遍历整个二叉树时用到了深搜（dfs）的思想。

/**
 * 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:
    TreeNode* lowestCommonAncestor(TreeNode* root, TreeNode* p, TreeNode* q) {
    unordered_map(TreeNode*,int) depth;//记录每个节点的深度（这里定义根节点深度为0）
    unordered_map(TreeNode*,TreeNode*) parent;//记录每个节点的双亲节点
    dfs(root,NULL,0,depth,parent);

    if(depth[p]<depth[q])//如果p节点深度小于q（说明p比q跟靠近根节点）
        swap(p,q);
    int d=depth[p]-depth[q];
    for(int i=0;i<d;i++)
        p=parent[p];//这里是不断让p等于它的双亲节点，使p，q在同一深度上

    while(p!=q){
        p=parent[p];
        q=parent[q];
    }
    return p;
    }

    void dfs(TreeNode* node,TreeNode* p,int d,unordered_map<TreeNode*,int> &depth,unordered_map<TreeNode*,TreeNode*> &parent){//记得传入要传引用
        if(!node)return ;
        depth[node]=d;
        parent[node]=p;    //p表示在深搜时node的双亲节点
        dfs(node->left,node,d+1,depth,parent);
        dfs(node->right,node,d+1,depth,parent);
    }
};