Given a binary search tree (BST), find the lowest common ancestor (LCA) of two given nodes in the BST.
According to thedefinition 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 allowa node to be a descendant of itself).”
_______6______
/ \
___2__ ___8__
/ \ / \
0 _4 7 9
/ \
3 5
For example, the lowest common ancestor (LCA) of nodes2
and8
is6
. Another example is LCA of nodes2
and4
is2
, since a node can be a descendant of itself according to the LCA definition.
/**
* Definition for a binary tree node.
* public class TreeNode {
* int val;
* TreeNode left;
* TreeNode right;
* TreeNode(int x) { val = x; }
* }
*/
class Solution {
public TreeNode lowestCommonAncestor(TreeNode root, TreeNode p, TreeNode q) {
if (root == null) return null;
TreeNode leftResult = lowestCommonAncestor(root.left, p, q);
TreeNode rightResult = lowestCommonAncestor(root.right, p, q);
if (root.val == p.val || root.val == q.val){
return root;
}
else if (leftResult != null && rightResult != null){
return root;
}
else if (leftResult != null){
return leftResult;
}
else{
return rightResult;
}
}
}