LeetCode 235. Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Search Tree 二叉搜索树

235. Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Search Tree

Given a binary search tree (BST), find the lowest common ancestor (LCA) of two given nodes in the BST.

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).”
__6_
/ \
_2 _8
/ \ / \
0 _4 7 9
/ \
3 5

For example, the lowest common ancestor (LCA) of nodes 2 and 8 is 6. Another example is LCA of nodes 2 and 4 is 2, since a node can be a descendant of itself according to the LCA definition.

题意

给定一棵二分搜索树和两个节点，寻找这两个节点的最近公共祖先。

注意

二叉搜索树的性质：
每个节点的键值大于左孩子；每个节点的键值小于右孩子；以左右孩子为根的子树仍为二分搜索树

二叉树的操作：
插入 insert，查找 find， 删除 delete
最大值，最小值 minimum, maximum
前驱，后继 successor, predecessor
上界，下界 floor, ceil
某个元素的排名 rank
寻找第k大（小）元素 select

思路

见代码注释

代码

class Solution {
public:
    TreeNode* lowestCommonAncestor(TreeNode* root, TreeNode* p, TreeNode* q) {
        if(root == NULL)
        {
            return NULL;
        }

        //p和q在二分搜索树中的左侧，那么在左侧寻找其公共祖先
        if(p->val < root->val&& q->val < root->val)
        {
            return lowestCommonAncestor(root->left,p,q);
        }
        //p和q在二分搜索树中的右侧，那么在右侧寻找其公共祖先
        if(p->val > root->val&& q->val > root->val)
        {
            return lowestCommonAncestor(root->right,p,q);
        }

        //若不然，不是上述的两种情况，一个是>=root值，一个是<=root值，这种情况下
        //p,q的公共祖先是root，含有二种情况
        //1.p<root ,q>root    即p和q在root的两侧
        //2.p=root或者q=root
        //注意  p和q能否都在树上，p和q的有效性  
        return root;

    }
};

结果