Diameter of the binary tree 🌟🌟

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Given the root of a binary tree, return the length of the diameter of the tree.

The diameter of a binary tree is the length of the longest path between any two nodes in a tree. This path may or may not pass through the root.

The length of a path between two nodes is represented by the number of edges between them.

Brute force

• As in the description the diameter of a binary tree is the length of the longest path between any two nodes in a tree.
• This path may or may not pass through the root
• So we can find the height of the left subtree and right subtree and add them to get the diameter of the tree.
• Similarly calculate the diameter of the left subtree and right subtree.
• return the maximum of the three(current diameter, left diameter, right diameter)
• Time complexity: O(N^2), as every time we are calculating the height of the tree.
• Space complexity: O(N)

Code

class Solution {
private:
    int height(TreeNode* root)
    {
        if (root == NULL) return 0;
        return 1 + max(height(root->left), height(root->right));
    }
    int diameter(TreeNode* root)
    {
        if (root == NULL) return 0;

        int leftHeight = height(root->left);
        int rightHeight = height(root->right);

        int leftDig = diameter(root->left);
        int rightDig = diameter(root->right);

        return max(1 + leftHeight + rightHeight, max(leftDig, rightDig));
    }

public:

    int diameterOfBinaryTree(TreeNode* root)
    {
        if (root == NULL) return 0;
        // O(N^2)
        return diameter(root)-1;
    }
};

Optimized

• We will use same approach as find the height of the tree.
• As we know every time we know the height of the left and right subtree, so we can calculate the diameter of the tree at this point.
• Just keep track of the maximum diameter of the tree in height of BT code.
• Time complexity: O(N)
• Space complexity: O(N)

Code

class Solution {
private:
    int height(TreeNode* root, int& ans)
    {
        if (root == NULL) return 0;

        int leftHeight = height(root->left, ans);
        int rightHeight = height(root->right, ans);
        // keep track of the maximum diameter of the tree
        ans = max(ans, leftHeight + rightHeight);
        return max(leftHeight, rightHeight) + 1;
    }

public:
    int diameterOfBinaryTree(TreeNode* root)
    {
        int ans = 0;
        height(root, ans);
        return ans;
    }
};