116.Populating Next Right Pointers in Each Node (M)

https://leetcode.com/problems/populating-next-right-pointers-in-each-node/

You are given a perfect binary tree where all leaves are on the same level, and every parent has two children. The binary tree has the following definition:

struct Node {
  int val;
  Node *left;
  Node *right;
  Node *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.

Example 1:

Input: root = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
Output: [1,#,2,3,#,4,5,6,7,#]
Explanation: Given the above perfect binary tree (Figure A), your function should populate each next pointer to point to its next right node, just like in Figure B. The serialized output is in level order as connected by the next pointers, with '#' signifying the end of each level.

Example 2:

Input: root = []
Output: []

Constraints:

• The number of nodes in the tree is in the range [0, 212 - 1].

• -1000 <= Node.val <= 1000

Follow-up:

• You may only use constant extra space.

• The recursive approach is fine. You may assume implicit stack space does not count as extra space for this problem.

Solution:

题目的意思就是把二叉树的每一层节点都用 next 指针连接起来：

而且题目说了，输入是一棵「完美二叉树」，形象地说整棵二叉树是一个正三角形，除了最右侧的节点 next 指针会指向 null，其他节点的右侧一定有相邻的节点。

这道题怎么做呢？把每一层的节点穿起来，是不是只要把每个节点的左右子节点都穿起来就行了？

我们可以模仿上一道题，写出如下代码：

Node connect(Node root) {
    if (root == null || root.left == null) {
        return root;
    }

    root.left.next = root.right;

    connect(root.left);
    connect(root.right);

    return root;
}

这样其实有很大问题，再看看这张图：

节点 5 和节点 6 不属于同一个父节点，那么按照这段代码的逻辑，它俩就没办法被穿起来，这是不符合题意的。

回想刚才说的，二叉树的问题难点在于，如何把题目的要求细化成每个节点需要做的事情，但是如果只依赖一个节点的话，肯定是没办法连接「跨父节点」的两个相邻节点的。

那么，我们的做法就是增加函数参数，一个节点做不到，我们就给他安排两个节点，「将每一层二叉树节点连接起来」可以细化成「将每两个相邻节点都连接起来」：

// 主函数
Node connect(Node root) {
    if (root == null) return null;
    connectTwoNode(root.left, root.right);
    return root;
}

// 辅助函数
void connectTwoNode(Node node1, Node node2) {
    if (node1 == null || node2 == null) {
        return;
    }
    /**** 前序遍历位置 ****/
    // 将传入的两个节点连接
    node1.next = node2;
    
    // 连接相同父节点的两个子节点
    connectTwoNode(node1.left, node1.right);
    connectTwoNode(node2.left, node2.right);
    // 连接跨越父节点的两个子节点
    connectTwoNode(node1.right, node2.left);
}

这样，connectTwoNode 函数不断递归，可以无死角覆盖整棵二叉树，将所有相邻节点都连接起来，也就避免了我们之前出现的问题，这道题就解决了。