Recursive - string or list?

Problem Description

Leetcode 257. Binary Tree Paths

# Definition for a binary tree node.
# class TreeNode(object):
#     def __init__(self, val=0, left=None, right=None):
#         self.val = val
#         self.left = left
#         self.right = right

• When we use string, we do not need to delete characters when recursive, the address of string will be the older one automatically.
• When we use list, we need to pop after invokig function itself, to achieve the effect of recursive.

Recursive with string (better)

class Solution(object):
    def binaryTreePaths(self, root):
        """
        :type root: TreeNode
        :rtype: List[str]
        """
        paths = []
        def dfs(node, path):
            if not node:
                return
            path += str(node.val)
            if not node.left and not node.right:
                paths.append(path)
            path += "->"
            dfs(node.left, path)
            dfs(node.right, path)
        dfs(root, "")
        return paths

Recursive with list

class Solution(object):
    def binaryTreePaths(self, root):
        """
        :type root: TreeNode
        :rtype: List[str]
        """

        paths = []
        def dfs(node, path):
            if not node:
                return
            path.append(node.val)
            if not node.left and not node.right:
                pathStr = ""
                if path:
                    pathStr = str(path[0])
                for index in range(1, len(path)):
                    pathStr += "->" + str(path[index])
                paths.append(pathStr)
            dfs(node.left, path)
            dfs(node.right, path)
            path.pop() # Need This Step!!!
        dfs(root, [])
        return paths