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.

二叉树是排序过的，位于左子树的节点都比父节点小；位于右子树的节点都比父节点大；

只要比较两个节点与父节点大小；

如果两个节点比父节点都小，那么在左子树找；

如果两个节点比父节点都大，那么在右子树找；

如果两个节点一个比父节点小一个比父节点大，最低公共祖先为父节点；

利用递归可以解决该问题：

/**
 * Definition for a binary tree node.
 * struct TreeNode {
 *     int val;
 *     TreeNode *left;
 *     TreeNode *right;
 *     TreeNode(int x) : val(x), left(NULL), right(NULL) {}
 * };
 */
class Solution {
public:
    TreeNode* lowestCommonAncestor(TreeNode* root, TreeNode* p, TreeNode* q) {
              if (root == NULL) {
            return NULL;
        }
        int min = (p->val > q->val ? q->val:p->val);
        int max = (p->val > q->val ? p->val: q->val);
        if(max < root->val)
            return lowestCommonAncestor(root->left, p, q);
        if (min > root->val) {
            return lowestCommonAncestor(root->right, p, q);
        }
        return root;
    }
};