543. Diameter of Binary Tree

Given a binary tree, you need to compute the length of the diameter of the tree. The diameter of a binary tree is the length of thelongest path between any two nodes in a tree. This path may or may not pass through the root.

Example:
Given a binary tree 

          1
         / \
        2   3
       / \     
      4   5    

Return 3, which is the length of the path [4,2,1,3] or [5,2,1,3].

Note: The length of path between two nodes is represented by the number of edges between them.

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Seen this question in a real interview before?   

Yes

 

/**
 * 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:
    int max = 0;
    int diameterOfBinaryTree(TreeNode* root) {
        __diameterOfBinaryTree(root);
        return max;
    }
    
    int __diameterOfBinaryTree(TreeNode* root) {
        if(!root){
             return 0;
        }else{
            int leftDepth = __diameterOfBinaryTree(root->left);
            int rightDepth = __diameterOfBinaryTree(root->right);
            if(leftDepth + rightDepth > max){
                max = leftDepth + rightDepth;
            }
             return max(leftDepth +1, rightDepth + 1);
        }
    }
};

深度搜索的思想，利用一个全局变量来存储当前的最大值。