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1123. Lowest Common Ancestor of Deepest Leaves

Description

Given the root of a binary tree, return the lowest common ancestor of its deepest leaves.

Recall that:

  • The node of a binary tree is a leaf if and only if it has no children
  • The depth of the root of the tree is 0. if the depth of a node is d, the depth of each of its children is d + 1.
  • The lowest common ancestor of a set S of nodes, is the node A with the largest depth such that every node in S is in the subtree with root A.

 

Example 1:

Input: root = [3,5,1,6,2,0,8,null,null,7,4]
Output: [2,7,4]
Explanation: We return the node with value 2, colored in yellow in the diagram.
The nodes coloured in blue are the deepest leaf-nodes of the tree.
Note that nodes 6, 0, and 8 are also leaf nodes, but the depth of them is 2, but the depth of nodes 7 and 4 is 3.

Example 2:

Input: root = [1]
Output: [1]
Explanation: The root is the deepest node in the tree, and it's the lca of itself.

Example 3:

Input: root = [0,1,3,null,2]
Output: [2]
Explanation: The deepest leaf node in the tree is 2, the lca of one node is itself.

 

Constraints:

  • The number of nodes in the tree will be in the range [1, 1000].
  • 0 <= Node.val <= 1000
  • The values of the nodes in the tree are unique.

 

Note: This question is the same as 865: https://leetcode.com/problems/smallest-subtree-with-all-the-deepest-nodes/

Solutions

Solution 1: DFS

We design a function dfs(root) that returns a tuple (l, d), where l is the deepest common ancestor of node root, and d is the depth of node root. The execution logic of the function dfs(root) is as follows:

  • If root is null, return the tuple (None, 0);
  • Otherwise, we recursively call dfs(root.left) and dfs(root.right), obtaining tuples (l, d1) and (r, d2). If d1 > d2, the deepest common ancestor of root is l, and the depth is d1 + 1; if d1 < d2, the deepest common ancestor of root is r, and the depth is d2 + 1; if d1 = d2, the deepest common ancestor of root is root, and the depth is d1 + 1.

In the main function, we call dfs(root) and return the first element of its return value to get the deepest common ancestor node.

The time complexity is $O(n)$, and the space complexity is $O(n)$. Here, $n$ is the number of nodes in the binary tree.

  • /**
 * Definition for a binary tree node.
 * public class TreeNode {
 *     int val;
 *     TreeNode left;
 *     TreeNode right;
 *     TreeNode() {}
 *     TreeNode(int val) { this.val = val; }
 *     TreeNode(int val, TreeNode left, TreeNode right) {
 *         this.val = val;
 *         this.left = left;
 *         this.right = right;
 *     }
 * }
 */
class Solution {
    public TreeNode lcaDeepestLeaves(TreeNode root) {
        return dfs(root).getKey();
    }

    private Pair<TreeNode, Integer> dfs(TreeNode root) {
        if (root == null) {
            return new Pair<>(null, 0);
        }
        Pair<TreeNode, Integer> l = dfs(root.left);
        Pair<TreeNode, Integer> r = dfs(root.right);
        int d1 = l.getValue(), d2 = r.getValue();
        if (d1 > d2) {
            return new Pair<>(l.getKey(), d1 + 1);
        }
        if (d1 < d2) {
            return new Pair<>(r.getKey(), d2 + 1);
        }
        return new Pair<>(root, d1 + 1);
    }
}

  • /**
 * Definition for a binary tree node.
 * struct TreeNode {
 *     int val;
 *     TreeNode *left;
 *     TreeNode *right;
 *     TreeNode() : val(0), left(nullptr), right(nullptr) {}
 *     TreeNode(int x) : val(x), left(nullptr), right(nullptr) {}
 *     TreeNode(int x, TreeNode *left, TreeNode *right) : val(x), left(left), right(right) {}
 * };
 */
class Solution {
public:
    TreeNode* lcaDeepestLeaves(TreeNode* root) {
        return dfs(root).first;
    }

    pair<TreeNode*, int> dfs(TreeNode* root) {
        if (!root) {
            return {nullptr, 0};
        }
        auto [l, d1] = dfs(root->left);
        auto [r, d2] = dfs(root->right);
        if (d1 > d2) {
            return {l, d1 + 1};
        }
        if (d1 < d2) {
            return {r, d2 + 1};
        }
        return {root, d1 + 1};
    }
};

  • # Definition for a binary tree node.
# class TreeNode:
#     def __init__(self, val=0, left=None, right=None):
#         self.val = val
#         self.left = left
#         self.right = right
class Solution:
    def lcaDeepestLeaves(self, root: Optional[TreeNode]) -> Optional[TreeNode]:
        def dfs(root):
            if root is None:
                return None, 0
            l, d1 = dfs(root.left)
            r, d2 = dfs(root.right)
            if d1 > d2:
                return l, d1 + 1
            if d1 < d2:
                return r, d2 + 1
            return root, d1 + 1

        return dfs(root)[0]


  • /**
 * Definition for a binary tree node.
 * type TreeNode struct {
 *     Val int
 *     Left *TreeNode
 *     Right *TreeNode
 * }
 */
type pair struct {
	first  *TreeNode
	second int
}

func lcaDeepestLeaves(root *TreeNode) *TreeNode {
	var dfs func(root *TreeNode) pair
	dfs = func(root *TreeNode) pair {
		if root == nil {
			return pair{nil, 0}
		}
		l, r := dfs(root.Left), dfs(root.Right)
		d1, d2 := l.second, r.second
		if d1 > d2 {
			return pair{l.first, d1 + 1}
		}
		if d1 < d2 {
			return pair{r.first, d2 + 1}
		}
		return pair{root, d1 + 1}
	}
	return dfs(root).first
}

  • /**
 * Definition for a binary tree node.
 * class TreeNode {
 *     val: number
 *     left: TreeNode | null
 *     right: TreeNode | null
 *     constructor(val?: number, left?: TreeNode | null, right?: TreeNode | null) {
 *         this.val = (val===undefined ? 0 : val)
 *         this.left = (left===undefined ? null : left)
 *         this.right = (right===undefined ? null : right)
 *     }
 * }
 */

function lcaDeepestLeaves(root: TreeNode | null): TreeNode | null {
    const dfs = (root: TreeNode | null): [TreeNode | null, number] => {
        if (root === null) {
            return [null, 0];
        }
        const [l, d1] = dfs(root.left);
        const [r, d2] = dfs(root.right);
        if (d1 > d2) {
            return [l, d1 + 1];
        }
        if (d1 < d2) {
            return [r, d2 + 1];
        }
        return [root, d1 + 1];
    };
    return dfs(root)[0];
}

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