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.
解题思路
在二叉查找树中,寻找两个节点的最低公共祖先:
- 如果a、b都比根节点小,则在左子树中递归查找公共节点。
- 如果a、b都比根节点大,则在右子树中查找公共祖先节点。
- 如果a、b一个比根节点大,一个比根节点小,或者有一个等于根节点,则根节点即为最低公共祖先。
代码如下:
/**
* 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) {
int min_v = min(p->val, q->val);
int max_v = max(p->val, q->val);
if (min_v > root->val) {
return lowestCommonAncestor(root->right, p, q);
}
if (max_v < root->val) {
return lowestCommonAncestor(root->left, p, q);
}
return root;
}
};