【leetcode】230. Kth Smallest Element in a BST

一、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.

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

题目解读：给一棵二叉搜索树（BST），找出二叉树中第 k 大的节点值

方法一：利用二叉搜索树的性质，二叉搜索树的中序遍历是一个从小到大的序列。可以用一个数组存储中序遍历序列，最后返回第 k-1 位置的节点值即可。

c++代码1：使用递归来中序遍历（28ms，6.37%）

/**
 * 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:
    vector<int> node;
    
    //通过中序遍历将每个节点的值存入数组中
    void m_sort(TreeNode* root){
        if(root==NULL)
            return;
        m_sort(root->left);
        node.push_back(root->val);
        m_sort(root->right);
    }
    
    int kthSmallest(TreeNode* root, int k) {
        m_sort(root);
        return node[k-1];
    }
};

c++代码2：使用迭代来实现中序遍历（24ms，15.41%）

/**
 * 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) {
       //利用迭代的方法来进行中序遍历
       stack<TreeNode*> s;
       int count=0;
       TreeNode* p=root;
       while(p!=NULL || !s.empty()){
           while(p!=NULL){   //先将所有的左节点放入栈中
               s.push(p);
               p=p->left;
           }//while
           if(!s.empty()){
               p=s.top();  //取出一个节点
               s.pop();  //删除该节点
               count++;
               if(count==k)
                    return p->val;
               p=p->right;
           }
           
       }//while
       return 0;
    }
};