</>Ali · LeetCode
#0112·EasyTrees

Path Sum

LeetCode #112 · Easy · Trees · C++ solution with worked-out approach and complexity analysis.

Approach

Iterative DFS using Stack

Use a stack to store pairs of (node, currentSum). For each node, track the sum from root to that node. When we reach a leaf node, check if the currentSum equals targetSum.

Time
O(n)
visit each node at most once
Space
O(h)
h is the height of the tree (stack space)
Problem description(from LeetCode)

Given the root of a binary tree and an integer targetSum, return true if the tree has a root-to-leaf path such that adding up all the values along the path equals targetSum. A leaf is a node with no children.

Examples

Example 1
Input:
root = [5,4,8,11,null,13,4,7,2,null,null,null,1], targetSum = 22
Output:
true
Note:
The path with the target sum is shown.
Example 2
Input:
root = [1,2,3], targetSum = 5
Output:
false
Note:
There are two root-to-leaf paths in the tree: (1 -> 2): The sum is 3. (1 -> 3): The sum is 5. There is no root-to-leaf path with sum = 5.
Example 3
Input:
root = [], targetSum = 0
Output:
false
Note:
Since the tree is empty, there are no root-to-leaf paths.

Constraints

  • The number of nodes in the tree is in the range [0, 5000].
  • -1000 <= Node.val <= 1000
  • -1000 <= targetSum <= 1000

C++ Solution

solution.cpp
struct TreeNode {
  int val;
  TreeNode *left;
  TreeNode *right;
  TreeNode() : val(0), left(nullptr), right(nullptr) {}
  TreeNode(int x) : val(x), left(nullptr), right(nullptr) {}
  TreeNode(int x, TreeNode *left, TreeNode *right)
      : val(x), left(left), right(right) {}
};

class Solution {
public:
bool hasPathSum(TreeNode *root, int targetSum) {
    if (root == nullptr) return false;

    stack<pair<TreeNode *, int>> s;
    s.push({root, root->val});

    while (!s.empty()) {
      pair<TreeNode *, int> top = s.top();
      s.pop();
      TreeNode *node = top.first;
      int currentSum = top.second;

      if (node->left == nullptr && node->right == nullptr &&
          currentSum == targetSum) {
        return true;
      }

      if (node->right != nullptr) {
        s.push({node->right, currentSum + node->right->val});
      }
      if (node->left != nullptr) {
        s.push({node->left, currentSum + node->left->val});
      }
    }

    return false;
  }
};