How to find the lowest common ancestor of two node

Question

The Binary Tree here is may not necessarily be a Binary Search Tree.
The structure could be taken as -

struct node {
    int data;
    struct node *left;
    struct node *right;
};

The maximum solution I could work out with a friend was something of this sort -
Consider this binary tree :

Binary Tree http://lcm.csa.iisc.ernet.in/dsa/img151.gif

The inorder traversal yields - 8, 4, 9, 2, 5, 1, 6, 3, 7

And the postorder traversal yields - 8, 9, 4, 5, 2, 6, 7, 3, 1

So for instance, if we want to find the common ancestor of nodes 8 and 5, then we make a list of all the nodes which are between 8 and 5 in the inorder tree traversal, which in this case happens to be [4, 9, 2]. Then we check which node in this list appears last in the postorder traversal, which is 2. Hence the common ancestor for 8 and 5 is 2.

The complexity for this algorithm, I believe is O(n) (O(n) for inorder/postorder traversals, the rest of the steps again being O(n) since they are nothing more than simple iterations in arrays). But there is a strong chance that this is wrong. :-)

But this is a very crude approach, and I'm not sure if it breaks down for some case. Is there any other (possibly more optimal) solution to this problem?

Answer 1

Here is the C++ way of doing it. Have tried to keep the algorithm as much easy as possible to understand:

// Assuming that `BinaryNode_t` has `getData()`, `getLeft()` and `getRight()`
class LowestCommonAncestor
{
  typedef char type;    
  // Data members which would behave as place holders
  const BinaryNode_t* m_pLCA;
  type m_Node1, m_Node2;

  static const unsigned int TOTAL_NODES = 2;

  // The core function which actually finds the LCA; It returns the number of nodes found
  // At any point of time if the number of nodes found are 2, then it updates the `m_pLCA` and once updated, we have found it!
  unsigned int Search (const BinaryNode_t* const pNode)
  {
    if(pNode == 0)
      return 0;

    unsigned int found = 0;

    found += (pNode->getData() == m_Node1);
    found += (pNode->getData() == m_Node2);

    found += Search(pNode->getLeft()); // below condition can be after this as well
    found += Search(pNode->getRight());

    if(found == TOTAL_NODES && m_pLCA == 0)
      m_pLCA = pNode;  // found !

    return found;
  }

public:
  // Interface method which will be called externally by the client
  const BinaryNode_t* Search (const BinaryNode_t* const pHead,
                              const type node1,
                              const type node2)
  {
    // Initialize the data members of the class
    m_Node1 = node1;
    m_Node2 = node2;
    m_pLCA = 0;

    // Find the LCA, populate to `m_pLCANode` and return
    (void) Search(pHead);
    return m_pLCA;
  }
};

How to use it:

LowestCommonAncestor lca;
BinaryNode_t* pNode = lca.Search(pWhateverBinaryTreeNodeToBeginWith);
if(pNode != 0)
  ...

Answer 2

Some of the solutions here assumes that there is reference to the root node, some assumes that tree is a BST. Sharing my solution using hashmap, without reference to root node and tree can be BST or non-BST:

    var leftParent : Node? = left
    var rightParent : Node? = right
    var map = [data : Node?]()

    while leftParent != nil {
        map[(leftParent?.data)!] = leftParent
        leftParent = leftParent?.parent
    }

    while rightParent != nil {
        if let common = map[(rightParent?.data)!] {
            return common
        }
        rightParent = rightParent?.parent
    }

Answer 3

Just walk down from the whole tree's root as long as both given nodes ,say p and q, for which Ancestor has to be found, are in the same sub-tree (meaning their values are both smaller or both larger than root's).

This walks straight from the root to the Least Common Ancestor , not looking at the rest of the tree, so it's pretty much as fast as it gets. A few ways to do it.

Iterative, O(1) space

Python

def lowestCommonAncestor(self, root, p, q):
    while (root.val - p.val) * (root.val - q.val) > 0:
        root = (root.left, root.right)[p.val > root.val]
    return root

Java

public TreeNode lowestCommonAncestor(TreeNode root, TreeNode p, TreeNode q) {
    while ((root.val - p.val) * (root.val - q.val) > 0)
        root = p.val < root.val ? root.left : root.right;
    return root;
}

in case of overflow, I'd do (root.val - (long)p.val) * (root.val - (long)q.val)

Recursive

Python

def lowestCommonAncestor(self, root, p, q):
    next = p.val < root.val > q.val and root.left or \
           p.val > root.val < q.val and root.right
    return self.lowestCommonAncestor(next, p, q) if next else root

Java

public TreeNode lowestCommonAncestor(TreeNode root, TreeNode p, TreeNode q) {
    return (root.val - p.val) * (root.val - q.val) < 1 ? root :
           lowestCommonAncestor(p.val < root.val ? root.left : root.right, p, q);
}

Answer 4

Although this has been answered already, this is my approach to this problem using C programming language. Although the code shows a binary search tree (as far as insert() is concerned), but the algorithm works for a binary tree as well. The idea is to go over all nodes that lie from node A to node B in inorder traversal, lookup the indices for these in the post order traversal. The node with maximum index in post order traversal is the lowest common ancestor.

This is a working C code to implement a function to find the lowest common ancestor in a binary tree. I am providing all the utility functions etc. as well, but jump to CommonAncestor() for quick understanding.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <malloc.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <math.h>

static inline int min (int a, int b)
{
    return ((a < b) ? a : b);
}
static inline int max (int a, int b)
{
    return ((a > b) ? a : b);
}

typedef struct node_ {
    int value;
    struct node_ * left;
    struct node_ * right;
} node;

#define MAX 12

int IN_ORDER[MAX] = {0};
int POST_ORDER[MAX] = {0};

createNode(int value) 
{
    node * temp_node = (node *)malloc(sizeof(node));
    temp_node->left = temp_node->right = NULL;
    temp_node->value = value;
    return temp_node;
}

node *
insert(node * root, int value)
{
    if (!root) {
        return createNode(value);
    }

    if (root->value > value) {
        root->left = insert(root->left, value);
    } else {
        root->right = insert(root->right, value);
    }

    return root;
}


/* Builds inorder traversal path in the IN array */
void
inorder(node * root, int * IN)
{
    static int i = 0;

    if (!root) return;

    inorder(root->left, IN);
    IN[i] = root->value;
    i++;
    inorder(root->right, IN);
}

/* Builds post traversal path in the POST array */

void
postorder (node * root, int * POST)
{
    static int i = 0;

    if (!root) return;

    postorder(root->left, POST);
    postorder(root->right, POST);
    POST[i] = root->value;
    i++;
}


int
findIndex(int * A, int value)
{
    int i = 0;
    for(i = 0; i< MAX; i++) {
        if(A[i] == value) return i;
    }
}
int
CommonAncestor(int val1, int val2)
{
    int in_val1, in_val2;
    int post_val1, post_val2;
    int j=0, i = 0; int max_index = -1;

    in_val1 = findIndex(IN_ORDER, val1);
    in_val2 = findIndex(IN_ORDER, val2);
    post_val1 = findIndex(POST_ORDER, val1);
    post_val2 = findIndex(POST_ORDER, val2);

    for (i = min(in_val1, in_val2); i<= max(in_val1, in_val2); i++) {
        for(j = 0; j < MAX; j++) {
            if (IN_ORDER[i] == POST_ORDER[j]) {
                if (j > max_index) {
                    max_index = j;
                }
            }
        }
    }
    printf("\ncommon ancestor of %d and %d is %d\n", val1, val2, POST_ORDER[max_index]);
    return max_index;
}
int main()
{
    node * root = NULL; 

    /* Build a tree with following values */
    //40, 20, 10, 30, 5, 15, 25, 35, 1, 80, 60, 100
    root = insert(root, 40);
    insert(root, 20);
    insert(root, 10);
    insert(root, 30);
    insert(root, 5);
    insert(root, 15);
    insert(root, 25);
    insert(root, 35);
    insert(root, 1);
    insert(root, 80);
    insert(root, 60);
    insert(root, 100);

    /* Get IN_ORDER traversal in the array */
    inorder(root, IN_ORDER);

    /* Get post order traversal in the array */
    postorder(root, POST_ORDER);

    CommonAncestor(1, 100);


}

Answer 5

Node *LCA(Node *root, Node *p, Node *q) {
  if (!root) return NULL;
  if (root == p || root == q) return root;
  Node *L = LCA(root->left, p, q);
  Node *R = LCA(root->right, p, q);
  if (L && R) return root;  // if p and q are on both sides
  return L ? L : R;  // either one of p,q is on one side OR p,q is not in L&R subtrees
}

Answer 6

The easiest way to find the Lowest Common Ancestor is using the following algorithm:

Examine root node

if value1 and value2 are strictly less that the value at the root node 
    Examine left subtree
else if value1 and value2 are strictly greater that the value at the root node 
    Examine right subtree
else
    return root

public int LCA(TreeNode root, int value 1, int value 2) {
    while (root != null) {
       if (value1 < root.data && value2 < root.data)
           return LCA(root.left, value1, value2);
       else if (value2 > root.data && value2 2 root.data)
           return LCA(root.right, value1, value2);
       else
           return root
    }

    return null;
}