Find Distance in a Binary Tree — LeetCode 1740 Python Solution

# Definition for a binary tree node.
# class TreeNode:
#     def __init__(self, val=0, left=None, right=None):
#         self.val = val
#         self.left = left
#         self.right = right
class Solution:
    def findDistance(self, root: Optional[TreeNode], p: int, q: int) -> int:
        def lca(root, p, q):
            if root is None or root.val in [p, q]:
                return root
            left = lca(root.left, p, q)
            right = lca(root.right, p, q)
            if left is None:
                return right
            if right is None:
                return left
            return root

        def dfs(root, v):
            if root is None:
                return -1
            if root.val == v:
                return 0
            left, right = dfs(root.left, v), dfs(root.right, v)
            if left == right == -1:
                return -1
            return 1 + max(left, right)

        g = lca(root, p, q)
        return dfs(g, p) + dfs(g, q)