LeetCode 513. Find Bottom Left Tree Value(Medium)

Description:
Given a binary tree, find the leftmost value in the last row of the tree.
Example 1:

Input:

    2
   / \
  1   3

Output:
1

Example 2:
Input:

        1
       / \
      2   3
     /   / \
    4   5   6
       /
      7

Output:
7

Note: You may assume the tree (i.e., the given root node) is not NULL

---

Analysis:
When we execute pre-order traversal, the leftmost node of a row is the first one that will be explored among the nodes in the same row. We can use this feature to help us solve this problem.

1. Firstly, setting two object variables maxLevel, result  which represent the max level that we have reached and the solution to the problem respectively.
2. Do the pre-order traverse, each time when the level of the node we are visiting is larger than maxLevel, this node must be the leftmost node of the current level. Then we use the current level to update maxLevel and the value of the node we are visiting to update result.

Time complexity: $O(n)$
Space complexity: $O(n)$

---

Code:

/**
 * Definition for a binary tree node.
 * public class TreeNode {
 *     int val;
 *     TreeNode left;
 *     TreeNode right;
 *     TreeNode(int x) { val = x; }
 * }
 */
class Solution {
    public int maxLevel = 0;
    public int result = 0;
    
    public int findBottomLeftValue(TreeNode root) {
        dfs(root, 1);
        
        return result;
    }
    
    public void dfs(TreeNode node, int level) {
        if(node == null) {
            return;
        }else{
            if(level > maxLevel) {
                maxLevel = level;
                result = node.val;
            }
            if(node.left != null) {
                dfs(node.left, level+1);
            }
            if(node.right != null) {
                dfs(node.right, level+1);
            }
        }
    }
}