LeetCode230. Kth Smallest Element in a BST 二叉搜索树中第K小的元素

1. problem description

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

Note:
You may assume k is always valid, 1 ≤ k ≤ BST’s total elements.（你可以假设 k 总是有效的，1 ≤ k ≤ 二叉搜索树元素个数。）

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

2. solution

class Solution {
public:
    int kthSmallest(TreeNode* root, int k) {
        stack<TreeNode *> st;
        TreeNode *p = root;
        while(p || !st.empty())
        {
            while(p)
            {
                st.push(p);
                p = p->left;
            }
            p = st.top();
            if(--k == 0)
                return p->val;
            st.pop();
            p = p->right;
        }
    }
};