235. Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Search Tree

Problem

Given a binary search tree (BST), find the lowest common ancestor (LCA) node 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, 10^5].

• -10^9 <= Node.val <= 10^9

• All Node.val are unique.

• p != q

• p and q will exist in the BST.

Solution (Java)

/**
 * 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) {
        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 {
                break;
            }
        }
        return root;
    }
}

Solution (Javascript)

/**
 * Definition for a binary tree node.
 * function TreeNode(val) {
 *     this.val = val;
 *     this.left = this.right = null;
 * }
 */

/**
 * @param {TreeNode} root
 * @param {TreeNode} p
 * @param {TreeNode} q
 * @return {TreeNode}
 */
var lowestCommonAncestor = function(root, p, q) {
  const low = Math.min(p.val, q.val)
  const high = Math.max(p.val, q.val)
  let ancestor = null
  const aux = (node) => {
    if (!node) {
      return
    }
    if (node.val >= low && node.val <= high) {
      ancestor = node
    } else if (node.val <= low) {
      aux(node.right)
    } else {
      aux(node.left)
    }
  }
  aux(root)
  return ancestor
};

Explain:

nope.

Complexity:

• Time complexity : O(n).
• Space complexity : O(n).