230.Kth Smallest Element in a BST

Given a binary search tree, write a function kthSmallest to find the kth smallest element in it.

Note: 
You may assume k is always valid, 1 ≤ k ≤ BST's total elements.

Follow up:
What if the BST is modified (insert/delete operations) often and you need to find the kth smallest frequently? How would you optimize the kthSmallest routine?

中序遍历BST

BST具有如下性质：

左子树中所有元素的值均小于根节点的值

右子树中所有元素的值均大于根节点的值

因此采用中序遍历（左 -> 根 -> 右）即可以递增顺序访问BST中的节点，从而得到第k小的元素，时间复杂度O(k)

/**
 * Definition for a binary tree node.
 * struct TreeNode {
 *     int val;
 *     TreeNode *left;
 *     TreeNode *right;
 *     TreeNode(int x) : val(x), left(NULL), right(NULL) {}
 * };
 */
class Solution {
public:
    int kthSmallest(TreeNode* root, int k) {
        stack<TreeNode *> myStack;
        int count = 1;
        while(root || !myStack.empty())
        {
            while(root)
            {
                myStack.push(root);
                root = root->left;
            }
            
            if(!myStack.empty())
            {
                TreeNode *tmp = myStack.top();
                myStack.pop();
                if(count == k)
                {
                    return tmp->val;
                }
                root = tmp->right;
                ++count;
            }
        }
        
        return INT_MAX;
    }
};

进一步思考：

如果BST节点TreeNode的属性可以扩展，则再添加一个属性leftCnt，记录左子树的节点个数

记当前节点为node

当node不为空时循环：

若k == node.leftCnt + 1：则返回node

否则，若k > node.leftCnt：则令k -= node.leftCnt + 1，令node = node.right

否则，node = node.left

上述算法时间复杂度为O(BST的高度)