QUESTION:

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 v and w as the lowest node in T that has both v and w as descendants (where we allow a node to be a descendant of itself).”

        _______6______
       /              \
    ___2__          ___8__
   /      \        /      \
   0      _4       7       9
         /  \
         3   5

For example, the lowest common ancestor (LCA) of nodes 2 and 8 is 6. Another example is LCA of nodes 2 and 4 is 2, since a node can be a descendant of itself according to the LCA definition.

EXPLANATION:

其实lca的算法挺多的了，什么rom的，但是本题有个前提是BST的二叉树，那么就比较简单了。如果在同一边，就继续往下搜索，如果不在一边，就直接返回该值就可以了。

SOLUTION:

public class Solution {
    public TreeNode lowestCommonAncestor(TreeNode root, TreeNode p, TreeNode q) {
        if (root == null) return null;
        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;
    }
}