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 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.
答案:
思路:
这题是在235. Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Search Tree之上做的变种,现在是要求在任意的二叉树中进行查找,题目的难度瞬间从easy升到了medium。但是其实基本的思想是和原来一样的,即需要判断两个节点相对根节点是在同侧还是两侧。下面给出一种思路:
假设给出的两个节点是p和q,如果根节点root是p或者q,那么LCA就是root。
但是这个是对于整个树的root而言,考虑左子树,如果根节点(也就是root.left)是p或q,那么这个存在两种情况:
1. 另外一个节点在右子树中,那么root就是我们要求的LCA;
2. 另外一个节点不在右子树中,那么root.left就是我们要求的LCA。
同样的结论对于右子数也成立。
按照这样的思路递归求解就可以找到答案
参考代码:
/**
* Definition for a binary tree node.
* public class TreeNode {
* int val;
* TreeNode left;
* TreeNode right;
* TreeNode(int x) { val = x; }
* }
*/
public class Solution {
public TreeNode lowestCommonAncestor(TreeNode root, TreeNode p, TreeNode q) {
if (root == null || root == p || root == q) return root;
TreeNode left = lowestCommonAncestor(root.left, p, q);
TreeNode right = lowestCommonAncestor(root.right, p, q);
return left != null ? (right != null ? root : left) : right;
}
}