Leetcode•May 19, 2025
Minimum Depth of Binary Tree
Hazrat Ali
Leetcode
The minimum depth is the number of nodes along the shortest path from the root node down to the nearest leaf node.
Note: A leaf is a node with no children.
Example 1:
Input: root = [3,9,20,null,null,15,7] Output: 2
Example 2:
Input: root = [2,null,3,null,4,null,5,null,6] Output: 5
Solution
/**
* @param {TreeNode} root
* @return {number}
*/
const minDepth = root => {
if (!root) {
return 0;
}
if (!root.left) {
return 1 + minDepth(root.right);
}
if (!root.right) {
return 1 + minDepth(root.left);
}
return 1 + Math.min(minDepth(root.left), minDepth(root.right));
};