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 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 nodes2and8is6. Another example is LCA of nodes2and4is2, since a node can be a descendant of itself according to the LCA definition.

Tips:

注意这里是BST，所以有左子树 < 根节点 < 右子树的特性。Iterative方法注意循环条件。

复杂度:O(h), worst case O(n)

Code：

Recursive:

public class Solution {
    public TreeNode lowestCommonAncestor(TreeNode root, TreeNode p, TreeNode q) {
        if (root.val > p.val && root.val > q.val) return lowestCommonAncestor(root.left, p, q);
        if (root.val < p.val && root.val < q.val) return lowestCommonAncestor(root.right, p, q);
        return root;
    }
}

Iterative:

public class Solution {
    public TreeNode lowestCommonAncestor(TreeNode root, TreeNode p, TreeNode q) {
        while (true) {
            if (root.val > p.val && root.val > q.val)
                root = root.left;
            else if (root.val < p.val && root.val < q.val)
                root = root.right;
            else
                return root;
        }
    }
}