[LEETCODE]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?

Hint:

Try to utilize the property of a BST.
What if you could modify the BST node’s structure?
The optimal runtime complexity is O(height of BST).

找到bst 中第k 个元素的位置。
方法：
用中序排序生成一个有序从小到大的特性，找到第k个数。

class Solution {
public:
    int kthSmallest(TreeNode* root, int k) {
        if (k <= 0 || root == NULL) return -1;
        int res = 0, index = 0;
        InOrder(root, k, index, res);
        return res;
    }
    void InOrder(TreeNode* root, int k, int &index, int& res) {
        if (root) {
            if (root -> left) InOrder(root -> left, k, index,res);
            index++;
            if (index > k) return;
            if (index == k) {
                res = root -> val;
                return;
            }
            if (root -> right) {
                InOrder(root -> right, k, index, res);
            }
        }
    }
};