4.6 Successor

For this problem, first we need to know the in-order traverse: left -> root ->right.
Then we can analyze the problem by simply drawing a BT:

Therefore, we can find there are total three different situations:
a. for node 8, it has both left and right child, its successor it the leftmost child in its right subtree(which is 10).
b. for node 4, it has no left or right child, and it’s left child of its parent node, so the successor node for “4” is its parent(which is 8).
c. for node 14, it has no left or right child, and it’s right child of its parent node, under this situation, we have to find a parent node that the current node(14) is in its left subtree(which is 20).

    TreeNode* leftMostChild(TreeNode* root){
        if(!root) return root;
        TreeNode* p = root->right;
        while(p->left) p = p->left;
        return p;
    }
    TreeNode* inOrderSecc(TreeNode* root){
        if(!root) return root;
        if(root->right){
            return leftMostChild(root);
        else{
            TreeNode* cur = root;
            TreeNode* paren = cur->parent;
            while(paren && paren->left != cur){
                cur = paren;
                paren = cur->parent;
            }
            return paren;
        }
    }