LeetCode //C - 404. Sum of Left Leaves

404. Sum of Left Leaves

Given the root of a binary tree, return the sum of all left leaves.

A leaf is a node with no children. A left leaf is a leaf that is the left child of another node.
 

Example 1:

Input: root = [3,9,20,null,null,15,7]
Output: 24
Explanation: There are two left leaves in the binary tree, with values 9 and 15 respectively.

Example 2:

Input: root = [1]
Output: 0

Constraints:

• The number of nodes in the tree is in the range [1, 1000].
• -1000 <= Node.val <= 1000

From: LeetCode
Link: 404. Sum of Left Leaves

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Solution:

Ideas:

1. isLeaf: A helper function that checks if a node is a leaf (no left or right children).

2. sumOfLeftLeavesHelper: This is the main recursive function. It takes two arguments: the current node and a flag isLeft that indicates whether the node is a left child.

• If the node is a leaf and isLeft is true, it returns the node’s value.
• Otherwise, it recursively checks the left and right subtrees, summing the results.

3. sumOfLeftLeaves: This is the main function that starts the recursion, passing 0 as the initial isLeft flag (since the root is not a left child).

Code:

/**
 * Definition for a binary tree node.
 * struct TreeNode {
 *     int val;
 *     struct TreeNode *left;
 *     struct TreeNode *right;
 * };
 */

int isLeaf(struct TreeNode* node) {
    return (node != NULL && node->left == NULL && node->right == NULL);
}

int sumOfLeftLeavesHelper(struct TreeNode* root, int isLeft) {
    if (root == NULL) return 0;

    if (isLeaf(root) && isLeft) {
        return root->val;
    }

    // Recurse on left and right children
    return sumOfLeftLeavesHelper(root->left, 1) + sumOfLeftLeavesHelper(root->right, 0);
}

int sumOfLeftLeaves(struct TreeNode* root) {
    return sumOfLeftLeavesHelper(root, 0);
}