leetcode #20 in cpp

The question is to see if all '(', '{', '[' are matched by ')', '}', ']' correspondingly. 

Solution: 

The idea is to use a stack. 

        As we scan the string from left to right, we first check if the character should be put into the stack. The check condition is: Given an incoming character A, if the top of the stack is the left parenthesis and A is the corresponding left parenthesis, then the stack should pop.  Otherwise it should push the incoming character.

       if the whole string contains valid parentheses, every left parenthesis in the stack would be popped out. The stack would be empty after the scan of the string.

Be careful about empty stack. During iteration we should check if the stack is empty. When it is empty, we should always push the incoming character into it instead of checking the top of it. 

class Solution {
public:
    bool isValid(string s) {
        stack<char> stk; 
        for(int i = 0; i < s.length(); i ++){
            
            if(!stk.empty() && shouldPop(stk.top(),s.at(i))) stk.pop();
            else stk.push(s.at(i));
        }
        return stk.empty();
    }
    bool shouldPop(char stack_top, char incoming){
        return incoming == ')' && stack_top == '(' || incoming == '}' && stack_top == '{' || incoming == ']' && stack_top =='[';
    }
};