Leetcode 114. Flatten Binary Tree to Linked List

Problem

Given the root of a binary tree, flatten the tree into a “linked list”:

• The “linked list” should use the same TreeNode class where the right child pointer points to the next node in the list and the left child pointer is always null.
• The “linked list” should be in the same order as a pre-order traversal of the binary tree.

Algorithm

Recursion. dfs(root) return the root and the last node of the list(tree).
This can be considered into four cases. The list structure is [root, Lsubtree, Rsubtree].

Code

# Definition for a binary tree node.
# class TreeNode:
#     def __init__(self, val=0, left=None, right=None):
#         self.val = val
#         self.left = left
#         self.right = right
class Solution:
    def flatten(self, root: Optional[TreeNode]) -> None:
        """
        Do not return anything, modify root in-place instead.
        """
        if not root:
            return []
        
        print(root)
        
        def dfs(root):
            if not root.left and not root.right:
                return root, root
            
            if not root.left:
                rootr, leafr = dfs(root.right)
                return root, leafr
            
            if not root.right:
                rootl, leafl = dfs(root.left)
                root.left = None
                root.right = rootl
                return root, leafl
            
            rootr, leafr = dfs(root.right)
            rootl, leafl = dfs(root.left)
            root.left = None
            root.right = rootl
            leafl.right = rootr
            return root, leafr
        
        rootr, leafr = dfs(root)