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.

Example 1:

Input: root = [3,1,4,null,2], k = 1
   3
  / \
 1   4
  \
   2
Output: 1

Example 2:

Input: root = [5,3,6,2,4,null,null,1], k = 3
       5
      / \
     3   6
    / \
   2   4
  /
 1
Output: 3

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?

给定一个二叉搜索树，求出其第K大的元素。二叉搜索树是一种满足左子树所有节点值<根节点<右子树所有节点值的一种二叉树。因此，求其第K大元素即中序遍历其第K个元素，代码如下：

/**
 * 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*> st_node;
        TreeNode* p = root;
        while(p != nullptr || !st_node.empty())
        {
            if(p != nullptr)
            {
                st_node.push(p);
                p = p->left;
            }
            else
            {
                p = st_node.top();
                st_node.pop();
                k--;
                if(0 == k)
                {
                    return p->val;
                }
                p = p->right;
            }
        }
        return NULL;
    }
};