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.
Subscribe to see which companies asked this question
/**
* 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) {
if(p->val <= root->val && q->val >= root->val)
return root;
if(p->val >= root->val && q->val <= root->val)
return root;
if(p->val > root->val && p->val > root->val)
return lowestCommonAncestor(root->right, p, q);
if(p->val < root->val && p->val < root->val)
return lowestCommonAncestor(root->left, p, q);
}
};