Lowest Common Ancestor of a Binary Search Tree

Problem Description

Given a binary search tree (BST), find the lowest common ancestor (LCA) node of two given nodes in the BST.

According to the definition of LCA on Wikipedia: “The lowest common ancestor is defined between two nodes p and q as the lowest node in T that has both p and q as descendants (where we allow a node to be a descendant of itself).”

Example 1:

Input: root = [6,2,8,0,4,7,9,null,null,3,5], p = 2, q = 8
Output: 6
Explanation: The LCA of nodes 2 and 8 is 6.

Example 2:

Input: root = [6,2,8,0,4,7,9,null,null,3,5], p = 2, q = 4
Output: 2
Explanation: The LCA of nodes 2 and 4 is 2, since a node can be a descendant of itself according to the LCA definition.

Example 3:

Input: root = [2,1], p = 2, q = 1
Output: 2

Constraints:

• The number of nodes in the tree is in the range [2, 105].
• -109 <= Node.val <= 109
• All Node.val are unique.
• p != q
• p and q will exist in the BST.

Solution (JavaScript)

/**
 * Definition for a binary tree node.
 * function TreeNode(val) {
 *     this.val = val;
 *     this.left = this.right = null;
 * }
 */

/**
 * @param {TreeNode} root
 * @param {TreeNode} p
 * @param {TreeNode} q
 * @return {TreeNode}
 */
var lowestCommonAncestor = function(root, p, q) {
    let lca = null;
    const hasDes = (node) => {
        if (!node) {
            return false;
        }
        const leftHas = hasDes(node.left);
        const rightHas = hasDes(node.right);
        let thisHas = false;
        if (node.val === p.val || node.val == q.val) {
            thisHas = true;
        }
        if ((leftHas && rightHas) || (thisHas && (leftHas || rightHas))) {
            lca = node;
        }
        return thisHas || leftHas || rightHas;
    }
    hasDes(root);
    return lca;
};