Tree: Depth-First Search - Lowest Common Ancestor of Binary Tree
The following code attempts to find the Lowest Common Ancestor using parent pointers. Identify the line containing the subtle bug that causes incorrect results when one node is ancestor of the other.
def lowestCommonAncestor(root, p, q):
parent = {root: None}
stack = [root]
while p not in parent or q not in parent:
node = stack.pop()
if node.left:
parent[node.left] = node
stack.append(node.left)
if node.right:
parent[node.right] = node
stack.append(node.right)
ancestors = set()
while p:
ancestors.add(p)
p = parent[p]
while q not in ancestors:
q = parent[q]
return q
