LeetCode 235. Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Search Tree

Description

https://leetcode.com/problems/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 p and q as the lowest node in T that has both p and q as descendants (where we allow a node to be a descendant of itself).”

Example 1:

Input: root = [6,2,8,0,4,7,9,null,null,3,5], p = 2, q = 8
Output: 6
Explanation: The LCA of nodes 2 and 8 is 6.

Example 2:

Input: root = [6,2,8,0,4,7,9,null,null,3,5], p = 2, q = 4
Output: 2
Explanation: The LCA of nodes 2 and 4 is 2, since a node can be a descendant of itself according to the LCA definition.

Example 3:

Input: root = [2,1], p = 2, q = 1
Output: 2

Constraints:

• The number of nodes in the tree is in the range [2, 105].
• -109 <= Node.val <= 109
• All Node.val are unique.
• p != q
• p and q will exist in the BST.

Explanation

If root is either p or q, LCA is root.

If LCA is in either subtree, return the LCA from that subtree.

If p and q are in different subtree, return the root.

Python Solution

# Definition for a binary tree node.
# class TreeNode:
#     def __init__(self, x):
#         self.val = x
#         self.left = None
#         self.right = None

class Solution:
    def lowestCommonAncestor(self, root: 'TreeNode', p: 'TreeNode', q: 'TreeNode') -> 'TreeNode':
        
        
        return self.helper(root, p, q)
    
    
    def helper(self, root, p, q):
        if not root:
            return root
        
        if root == p or root == q:
            return root
        
        left = self.helper(root.left, p, q)
        right = self.helper(root.right, p, q)
        
        if left and right:
            return root
        
        if left:
            return left
        
        if right:
            return right