236. 二叉树的最近公共祖先

https://leetcode-cn.com/problems/lowest-common-ancestor-of-a-binary-tree/

 

中文题目：

给定一个二叉树, 找到该树中两个指定节点的最近公共祖先。

百度百科中最近公共祖先的定义为：“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（一个节点也可以是它自己的祖先）。”

例如，给定如下二叉树:  root = [3,5,1,6,2,0,8,null,null,7,4]

 

英文题目：

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 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).”

Given the following binary tree:  root = [3,5,1,6,2,0,8,null,null,7,4]

 

示例 1:

输入: root = [3,5,1,6,2,0,8,null,null,7,4], p = 5, q = 1
输出: 3
解释: 节点 5 和节点 1 的最近公共祖先是节点 3。
示例 2:

输入: root = [3,5,1,6,2,0,8,null,null,7,4], p = 5, q = 4
输出: 5
解释: 节点 5 和节点 4 的最近公共祖先是节点 5。因为根据定义最近公共祖先节点可以为节点本身。
 

说明:

所有节点的值都是唯一的。
p、q 为不同节点且均存在于给定的二叉树中。

 

 

思路：

In this question, we need to find the nearest ancestor. so we recursive from the root to find out whether node p and q in the left or right. if these two nodes are left and right subtree of the root node, we return this root node. if only p or q has been found out, so this founded node is the goal that we are chasing.

 

 

题解：

class Solution {
    public TreeNode lowestCommonAncestor(TreeNode root, TreeNode p, TreeNode q) {
        // 不论该节点是空还是p和q都返回该节点
        if (root == null || root == p || root == q) {
            return root;
        }
        
        // root不是空和p或q则去子节点找
        TreeNode left = lowestCommonAncestor(root.left, p, q);
        TreeNode right = lowestCommonAncestor(root.right, p, q);
        
        // 由于p，q均存在，所以当只返回一个left或者right时，这个节点是另一个节点的祖先节点
        if (left == null) {
            return right;
        }
        
        if (right == null) {
            return left;
        }
        
        // p和q在这个节点的左右两侧，那么这个节点是最近的祖先节点
        if (left != null && right != null) {
            return root;
        }
        
        return null;
    }
}