Leetcode May Challenge - 05/20: Kth Smallest Element in a BST(Python)

题目描述

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.

例子

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

解释

给一个二叉搜索树，找到其中第k小的元素。

思路 中序遍历

看到二叉搜索树，就想到其性质：左孩子<根<右孩子。因此中序遍历后的数组，一定是有序的。我们用中序遍历，将节点的值存入数组中，最后返回数组的第k个元素即可。

代码

# Definition for a binary tree node.
# class TreeNode(object):
#     def __init__(self, val=0, left=None, right=None):
#         self.val = val
#         self.left = left
#         self.right = right
class Solution(object):
    def kthSmallest(self, root, k):
        """
        :type root: TreeNode
        :type k: int
        :rtype: int
        """
        self.tree = []
        self.inorder(root)
        return self.tree[k - 1]
        
    def inorder(self, root):
        if not root:
            return
        if root.left:
            self.inorder(root.left)
        self.tree.append(root.val)
        if root.right:
            self.inorder(root.right)