235. 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.

Answer: https://leetcode.com/problems/lowest-common-ancestor-of-a-binary-search-tree/description/

   /**
 * Definition for a binary tree node.
 * public class TreeNode {
 *     public int val;
 *     public TreeNode left;
 *     public TreeNode right;
 *     public TreeNode(int x) { val = x; }
 * }
 */
public class Solution {
   public TreeNode LowestCommonAncestor(TreeNode root, TreeNode p, TreeNode q) {
        if (root == null || root == p || root == q) {
            return root;
        }

        // Divide
        TreeNode left = LowestCommonAncestor(root.left, p, q);
        TreeNode right = LowestCommonAncestor(root.right, p, q);

        // Conquer
        if (left != null && right != null) {
            return root;
        } 
        if (left != null) {
            return left;
        }
        if (right != null) {
            return right;
        }
        return null;
    }
}