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:

1. Try to utilize the property of a BST.
2. What if you could modify the BST node's structure?

1. The optimal runtime complexity is O(height of BST).

Solution 1

public static int kthSmallest(TreeNode root, int k) {
        int count = count(root.left);
        if(k <= count){
            return kthSmallest(root.left, k);
        }else if(k > count + 1){
            return kthSmallest(root.right, k-1-count);
        }
        return root.val;
    }
    public static int count(TreeNode root){
        if(root == null){
            return 0;
        }
        return 1 + count(root.left) + count(root.right);
    }

Solution 2

 private static int number = 0;
    private static int count = 0;

    public int kthSmallest2(TreeNode root, int k) {
        count = k;
        helper(root);
        return number;
    }

    public void helper(TreeNode n) {
        if (n.left != null) helper(n.left);
        count--;
        if (count == 0) {
            number = n.val;
            return;
        }
        if (n.right != null) helper(n.right);
    }

Solution 3

//Iterative
    public int kthSmallest3(TreeNode root, int k) {
        Stack<TreeNode> st = new Stack<>();

        while (root != null) {
            st.push(root);
            root = root.left;
        }

        while (k != 0) {
            TreeNode n = st.pop();
            k--;
            if (k == 0) return n.val;
            TreeNode right = n.right;
            while (right != null) {
                st.push(right);
                right = right.left;
            }
        }

        return -1; // never hit if k is valid
  }

Solution 4 Revise the TreeNode structure

https://leetcode.com/discuss/43464/what-if-you-could-modify-the-bst-nodes-structure