How to find the lowest common ancestor of two nodes in any binary tree?

The answers given so far uses recursion or stores, for instance, a path in memory.

Both of these approaches might fail if you have a very deep tree.

Here is my take on this question. When we check the depth (distance from the root) of both nodes, if they are equal, then we can safely move upward from both nodes towards the common ancestor. If one of the depth is bigger then we should move upward from the deeper node while staying in the other one.

Here is the code:

findLowestCommonAncestor(v,w):
  depth_vv = depth(v);
  depth_ww = depth(w);

  vv = v; 
  ww = w;

  while( depth_vv != depth_ww ) {
    if ( depth_vv > depth_ww ) {
      vv = parent(vv);
      depth_vv--;
    else {
      ww = parent(ww);
      depth_ww--;
    }
  }

  while( vv != ww ) {
    vv = parent(vv);
    ww = parent(ww);
  }

  return vv;    

The time complexity of this algorithm is: O(n). The space complexity of this algorithm is: O(1).

Regarding the computation of the depth, we can first remember the definition: If v is root, depth(v) = 0; Otherwise, depth(v) = depth(parent(v)) + 1. We can compute depth as follows:

depth(v):
  int d = 0;
  vv = v;
  while ( vv is not root ) {
    vv = parent(vv);
    d++;
  }
  return d;

Here is the working code in JAVA

public static Node LCA(Node root, Node a, Node b) {
   if (root == null) {
       return null;
   }

   // If the root is one of a or b, then it is the LCA
   if (root == a || root == b) {
       return root;
   }

   Node left = LCA(root.left, a, b);
   Node right = LCA(root.right, a, b);

   // If both nodes lie in left or right then their LCA is in left or right,
   // Otherwise root is their LCA
   if (left != null && right != null) {
      return root;
   }

   return (left != null) ? left : right; 
}

Starting from root node and moving downwards if you find any node that has either p or q as its direct child then it is the LCA. (edit - this should be if p or q is the node's value, return it. Otherwise it will fail when one of p or q is a direct child of the other.)

Else if you find a node with p in its right(or left) subtree and q in its left(or right) subtree then it is the LCA.

The fixed code looks like:

treeNodePtr findLCA(treeNodePtr root, treeNodePtr p, treeNodePtr q) {

        // no root no LCA.
        if(!root) {
                return NULL;
        }

        // if either p or q is the root then root is LCA.
        if(root==p || root==q) {
                return root;
        } else {
                // get LCA of p and q in left subtree.
                treeNodePtr l=findLCA(root->left , p , q);

                // get LCA of p and q in right subtree.
                treeNodePtr r=findLCA(root->right , p, q);

                // if one of p or q is in leftsubtree and other is in right
                // then root it the LCA.
                if(l && r) {
                        return root;
                }
                // else if l is not null, l is LCA.
                else if(l) {
                        return l;
                } else {
                        return r;
                }
        }
}

The below code fails when either is the direct child of other.

treeNodePtr findLCA(treeNodePtr root, treeNodePtr p, treeNodePtr q) {

        // no root no LCA.
        if(!root) {
                return NULL;
        }

        // if either p or q is direct child of root then root is LCA.
        if(root->left==p || root->left==q || 
           root->right ==p || root->right ==q) {
                return root;
        } else {
                // get LCA of p and q in left subtree.
                treeNodePtr l=findLCA(root->left , p , q);

                // get LCA of p and q in right subtree.
                treeNodePtr r=findLCA(root->right , p, q);

                // if one of p or q is in leftsubtree and other is in right
                // then root it the LCA.
                if(l && r) {
                        return root;
                }
                // else if l is not null, l is LCA.
                else if(l) {
                        return l;
                } else {
                        return r;
                }
        }
}

Code In Action

Nick Johnson is correct that a an O(n) time complexity algorithm is the best you can do if you have no parent pointers.) For a simple recursive version of that algorithm see the code in Kinding's post which runs in O(n) time.

But keep in mind that if your nodes have parent pointers, an improved algorithm is possible. For both nodes in question construct a list containing the path from root to the node by starting at the node, and front inserting the parent.

So for 8 in your example, you get (showing steps): {4}, {2, 4}, {1, 2, 4}

Do the same for your other node in question, resulting in (steps not shown): {1, 2}

Now compare the two lists you made looking for the first element where the list differ, or the last element of one of the lists, whichever comes first.

This algorithm requires O(h) time where h is the height of the tree. In the worst case O(h) is equivalent to O(n), but if the tree is balanced, that is only O(log(n)). It also requires O(h) space. An improved version is possible that uses only constant space, with code shown in CEGRD's post

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Regardless of how the tree is constructed, if this will be an operation you perform many times on the tree without changing it in between, there are other algorithms you can use that require O(n) [linear] time preparation, but then finding any pair takes only O(1) [constant] time. For references to these algorithms, see the the lowest common ancestor problem page on Wikipedia. (Credit to Jason for originally posting this link)