Leetcode 543: Diameter of Binary Tree

问题描述：
Given the root of a binary tree, return the length of the diameter of the tree.
The diameter of a binary tree is the length of the longest path between any two nodes in a tree. This path may or may not pass through the root.
The length of a path between two nodes is represented by the number of edges between them.

思路：
最长路径（diameter）分两种情况：
case 1： 最长路径跨越根节点：左子树高度+右子树高度+2
case 2：最长路径不跨越根节点：拆成两个子问题，分别以左右孩子为根，求较大者
最终结果=max（case1，case2）

代码如下：

class Solution {
    public int diameterOfBinaryTree(TreeNode root) {
        if(root==null)  return 0;
        int leftHeight=height(root.left);  //height of the left subtree
        int rightHeight=height(root.right);  //height of the right subtree
        int leftDiameter=diameterOfBinaryTree(root.left);  //diameter of the left subtree
        int rightDiameter=diameterOfBinaryTree(root.right);  //diameter of the right subtree
        //case 1: cross the root, then longest path = leftHeight+rightHeight+2
        //case 2: do not cross the root, the longest path = max (diameter of left, diameter of right)
        //we need to calculate the maximum of the two cases
        return Math.max(leftHeight+rightHeight+2, Math.max(leftDiameter, rightDiameter));
    }
    
    private int height(TreeNode root){
        if(root==null)  return -1;
        return Math.max(height(root.left), height(root.right))+1;
    }
}

时间复杂度: O(n)