Symmetric Tree

Symmetric Tree first search

Given a binary tree, check whether it is a mirror of itself (ie, symmetric around its center).

For example, this binary tree [1,2,2,3,4,4,3] is symmetric:

         1
        / \
       2   2
      / \ / \
    3  4 4  3
But the following [1,2,2,null,3,null,3] is not:
         1
        / \
       2   2
        \   \
        3    3

Symmetric Tree Solution

/**
 * Definition for a binary tree node.
 * public class TreeNode {
 *     int val;
 *     TreeNode left;
 *     TreeNode right;
 *     TreeNode(int x) { val = x; }
 * }
 */
public class SymmetricTree {
    public boolean isSymmetric(TreeNode root) {
        if(root == null) {
            return true;
        }

        return helper(root.left, root.right);
    }

    public boolean helper(TreeNode left, TreeNode right) {
        if(left == null && right == null) {
            return true;
        }

        if(left == null || right == null || left.val != right.val) {
            return false;
        }

        return helper(left.right, right.left) && helper(left.left, right.right);
    }
}

Last modified October 4, 2020