leetcode450Delete Node in a BST

Given a root node reference of a BST and a key, delete the node with the given key in the BST. Return the root node reference (possibly updated) of the BST.

Basically, the deletion can be divided into two stages:

1. Search for a node to remove.
2. If the node is found, delete the node.

Note: Time complexity should be O(height of tree).

Example:

root = [5,3,6,2,4,null,7]
key = 3

    5
   / \
  3   6
 / \   \
2   4   7

Given key to delete is 3. So we find the node with value 3 and delete it.

One valid answer is [5,4,6,2,null,null,7], shown in the following BST.

    5
   / \
  4   6
 /     \
2       7

Another valid answer is [5,2,6,null,4,null,7].

    5
   / \
  2   6
   \   \
    4   7

程序代码：

/**
 * Definition for a binary tree node.
 * public class TreeNode {
 *     int val;
 *     TreeNode left;
 *     TreeNode right;
 *     TreeNode(int x) { val = x; }
 * }
 */
class Solution {
    public TreeNode deleteNode(TreeNode root, int key) {
        if(root == null)
            return null;
        if(key < root.val){
            root.left = deleteNode(root.left, key);
        }else if(key > root.val){
            root.right = deleteNode(root.right, key);
        }else{
            //fnided the key node
            if(root.right == null)
                return root.left;
            if(root.left == null)
                return root.right;
            //return the minim node in the right subtree
            TreeNode rightmin = findMinimNode(root.right);
            root.val = rightmin.val;
            root.right = deleteNode(root.right, rightmin.val);
        }
        return root;
    }
    
    private TreeNode findMinimNode(TreeNode root){
        while(root.left != null){
            root = root.left;
        }
        return root;
    }
}

运行：

有人说直接用被删除节点的右节点来替换被删除节点，然后再直接把被删除节点的左节点接到被删节点的右子树中。这样就可以不用在递归删除了。但是种种方式很明显会增加树的高度，对后续数据结构的维护是不利的，到时候还是需要再平衡树，但是针对这个问题是可以的。