298. Binary Tree Longest Consecutive Sequence

Given a binary tree, find the length of the longest consecutive sequence path.

The path refers to any sequence of nodes from some starting node to any node in the tree along the parent-child connections. The longest consecutive path need to be from parent to child (cannot be the reverse).

For example,

   1
    \
     3
    / \
   2   4
        \
         5

Longest consecutive sequence path is  3-4-5 , so return  3 . 

   2
    \
     3
    / 
   2    
  / 
 1

Longest consecutive sequence path is  2-3 ,not 3-2-1 , so return  2 .

从上往下找，设置target和当前的sum，一个max全局，实时更新max的值，最后返回max。代码如下：

/**
 * Definition for a binary tree node.
 * public class TreeNode {
 *     int val;
 *     TreeNode left;
 *     TreeNode right;
 *     TreeNode(int x) { val = x; }
 * }
 */
public class Solution {
    int max = 0;
    
    public int longestConsecutive(TreeNode root) {
        if (root == null) {
            return 0;
        }
        helper(root, 0, root.val);
        return max;
    }
    
    private void helper(TreeNode root, int cur, int target) {
        if (root == null) {
            return;
        } else if (root.val == target) {
            cur ++;
        } else {
            cur = 1;
        }
        max = Math.max(max, cur);
        helper(root.left, cur, root.val + 1);
        helper(root.right, cur, root.val + 1);
    }
}