题目

Given a binary tree

struct TreeLinkNode {
  TreeLinkNode *left;
  TreeLinkNode *right;
  TreeLinkNode *next;
}

Populate each next pointer to point to its next right node. If there is no next right node, the next pointer should be set to NULL.

Initially, all next pointers are set to NULL.

Note:

You may only use constant extra space.
You may assume that it is a perfect binary tree (ie, all leaves are at the same level, and every parent has two children).

For example,
Given the following perfect binary tree,

     1
   /  \
  2    3
 / \  / \
4  5  6  7

After calling your function, the tree should look like:

     1 -> NULL
   /  \
  2 -> 3 -> NULL
 / \  / \
4->5->6->7 -> NULL

解题之法

/**
 * Definition for binary tree with next pointer.
 * struct TreeLinkNode {
 *  int val;
 *  TreeLinkNode *left, *right, *next;
 *  TreeLinkNode(int x) : val(x), left(NULL), right(NULL), next(NULL) {}
 * };
 */
// Recursion, more than constant space
class Solution {
public:
    void connect(TreeLinkNode *root) {
        if (!root) return;
        if (root->left) root->left->next = root->right;
        if (root->right) root->right->next = root->next? root->next->left : NULL;
        connect(root->left);
        connect(root->right);
    }
};

分析

这道题实际上是树的层序遍历的应用，既然是遍历，就有递归和非递归两种方法，最好两种方法都要掌握，都要会写。下面来看递归的解法，由于是完全二叉树，所以若节点的左子结点存在的话，其右子节点必定存在，所以左子结点的next指针可以直接指向其右子节点，对于其右子节点的处理方法是，判断其父节点的next是否为空，若不为空，则指向其next指针指向的节点的左子结点，若为空则指向NULL。

下面是迭代的方法：

class Solution {
public:
    void connect(TreeLinkNode *root) {
        if (!root) return;
        TreeLinkNode *start = root, *cur = NULL;
        while (start->left) {
            cur = start;
            while (cur) {
                cur->left->next = cur->right;
                if (cur->next) cur->right->next = cur->next->left;
                cur = cur->next;
            }
            start = start->left;
        }
    }
};

题目中要求用O(1)的空间复杂度，所以上面这种方法碉堡了。用两个指针start和cur，其中start标记每一层的起始节点，cur用来遍历该层的节点，设计思路之巧妙，不得不服啊