236. Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Tree

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.

Subscribe to see which companies asked this question

代码：

/**
 * Definition for a binary tree node.
 * struct TreeNode {
 *     int val;
 *     int lev;
 *     TreeNode *left;
 *     TreeNode *right;
 *     TreeNode* parent;
 *     TreeNode(int x) : val(x), lev(0),left(NULL), right(NULL),parent(NULL) {}
 * };
 */
//  class NEWTreeNode {
//      int val;
//      int lev;
//      TreeNode *left;
//      TreeNode *right;
//      TreeNode* parent;
//      TreeNode(int x) : val(x), lev(0),left(NULL), right(NULL),parent(NULL) {};
//  };
class Solution {
public:
    TreeNode* lowestCommonAncestor(TreeNode* root, TreeNode* p, TreeNode* q) {
        // TreeNode * head=root;
        vector<TreeNode*> v1;
        vector<TreeNode*> v2;
        travel(root,p,v1);
        travel(root,q,v2);
        int t=0;
        for(;t<v1.size()&&t<v2.size();++t)
        {
            if(v1[t]!=v2[t]) break;
        }
        if(t<v1.size()&&t<v2.size()) return v1[t-1];
        else
        {
            if(t==v1.size()) return v1[t-1];
            else return v2[t-1];
        }

    }
    bool  travel(TreeNode* root,TreeNode* target,vector<TreeNode* >& v)
    {
        if(root==NULL) {return false;}
        v.push_back(root);
        bool index=false;
        if(root==target){return true;}

        if(!index&&root->left) index=travel(root->left,target,v);
        if(!index&&root->right)index=travel(root->right,target,v);
        if(!index) v.pop_back();
        return index;
    }
};

分析：
主要还是找到根目录到目标节点路径的问题。这样问题要求快速退出。

要好好理解下边的travel方法。还有好好理解递归的返回值问题。