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Solution: Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Tree

Explore how to identify the lowest common ancestor of two nodes in a binary tree using depth-first search. This lesson teaches recursive strategies to navigate tree structures, track node discovery, and efficiently determine ancestor relationships while analyzing time and space complexities.

Statement

Given the root node of a binary tree with nn nodes, your task is to find the lowest common ancestor of two of its nodes, p and q.

Note: The lowest common ancestor of two nodes, p and q, is defined as the lowest node in the binary tree that has both p and q as descendants.

A node can also be a descendant of itself. For example, if q is a descendant of p, and we know that p is a descendant of itself, then p will be the lowest common ancestor of p and q.

Constraints:

  • 2n5002 \leq n \leq 500
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