Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Tree

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.

方法一：根据路径找LCA。

class Solution {
public:
    TreeNode* lowestCommonAncestor(TreeNode* root, TreeNode* p, TreeNode* q) 
    {
      vector<TreeNode *>path,path1,path2;
      getpath(root,p,q,path,path1,path2);
      TreeNode *res=root;
      int idx=0;
      while(idx<path1.size()&&idx<path2.size())
      {
          if(path1[idx]!=path2[idx])
          break;
          else
          res=path1[idx++];
      }
      return res;
    }
    void getpath(TreeNode* root, TreeNode* p, TreeNode* q,vector<TreeNode *> &path,vector<TreeNode *> &path1,vector<TreeNode *> &path2)
    {
        if (root==NULL)
        return;
        path.push_back(root);
        if(root==p)
        path1=path;
        if(root==q)
        path2=path;
        if(!path1.empty()&&!path2.empty())
        return;
        getpath(root->left,p,q,path,path1,path2);
        getpath(root->right,p,q,path,path1,path2);
        path.pop_back();
    }
};

方法二：节点a与节点b的公共祖先c一定满足：a与b分别出现在c的左右子树上（如果a或者b本身不是祖先的话）。

/**
 * 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 (root == NULL) return NULL;
        if (root == p || root == q) return root;
        TreeNode *L = lowestCommonAncestor(root->left, p, q);
        TreeNode *R = lowestCommonAncestor(root->right, p, q);
        if (L && R) return root;
        return L ? L : R;
    }
};