LeetCode235 Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Search Tree二叉搜索树的最近公共祖先

1. problem description

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 p and q as the lowest node in T that has both p and q as descendants (where we allow a node to be a descendant of itself).”
对于有根树 T 的两个结点 p、q，最近公共祖先表示为一个结点 x，满足 x 是 p、q 的祖先且 x 的深度尽可能大

Given binary search tree: root = [6,2,8,0,4,7,9,null,null,3,5]

Example 1:

Input: root = [6,2,8,0,4,7,9,null,null,3,5], p = 2, q = 8
Output: 6
Explanation: The LCA of nodes 2 and 8 is 6.

Example 2:

Input: root = [6,2,8,0,4,7,9,null,null,3,5], p = 2, q = 4
Output: 2
Explanation: The LCA of nodes 2 and 4 is 2, since a node can be a descendant of itself according to the LCA definition.

Note:

• All of the nodes’ values will be unique.
• p and q are different and both values will exist in the BST.

2. solution

/**
 * 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 -> val > p -> val) && (root -> val > q -> val)) 
        {
            return lowestCommonAncestor(root -> left, p, q);
        }
        if ((root -> val < p -> val) && (root -> val < q -> val)) 
        {
            return lowestCommonAncestor(root -> right, p, q);
        }
        return root;
    }
};