solution_230

LeetCode Problem Description

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?

Credits:
Special thanks to @ts for adding this problem and creating all test cases.

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;
        }
    }
};