[LC] 543. Diameter of Binary Tree

Given a binary tree, you need to compute the length of the diameter of the tree. The diameter of a binary tree is the length of the longestpath between any two nodes in a tree. This path may or may not pass through the root.

Example:
Given a binary tree 

          1
         / 
        2   3
       /      
      4   5    

Return 3, which is the length of the path [4,2,1,3] or [5,2,1,3].

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

/**
 * Definition for a binary tree node.
 * public class TreeNode {
 *     int val;
 *     TreeNode left;
 *     TreeNode right;
 *     TreeNode(int x) { val = x; }
 * }
 */
class Solution {
    int res;
    public int diameterOfBinaryTree(TreeNode root) {
        helper(root);
        return res;
    }
    
    private int helper(TreeNode root) {
        if (root == null) {
            return 0;
        }
        int left = helper(root.left);
        int right = helper(root.right);
        res = Math.max(res, left + right);
        return left > right ? left + 1 : right + 1;
    }
}