Leetcode 297 - Serialize and Deserialize a binary tree

Leetcode297SerializeDeserialize.cs

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace _297SerializeAndDeserializeTree
{
    public class TreeNode {
      public int val;
      public TreeNode left;
      public TreeNode right;
      public TreeNode(int x) { val = x; }
    }

    /*
     * May 23, 2016
     * Work on coding, source code from:
     * 
     */
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
        }

        private static char delimiter = ',';
        private static char emptyNode = '#';

        // Encodes a tree to a single string.
        public static String serialize(TreeNode root)
        {
            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

            serialize(root, sb);

            return sb.ToString();
        }

        private static void serialize(TreeNode root, StringBuilder sb)
        {
            if (root == null)
            {
                sb.Append(emptyNode).Append(delimiter);
            }
            else
            {
                sb.Append(root.val).Append(delimiter);
                serialize(root.left, sb);
                serialize(root.right, sb);
            }
        }

        // Decodes your encoded data to tree.
        public TreeNode deserialize(string data)
        {
            LinkedList<string> nodes = new LinkedList<string>(data.Split(delimiter));

            return deserialize(nodes);
        }

        private static TreeNode deserialize(LinkedList<string> nodes)
        {
            string nodeVal = nodes.First();

            if (nodeVal.CompareTo(emptyNode.ToString()) == 0)
            {
                return null;
            }
            else
            {
                TreeNode node = new TreeNode(Int32.Parse(nodeVal));

                node.left = deserialize(nodes);
                node.right = deserialize(nodes);

                return node;
            }
        }
    }
}