[LeetCode402]Remove K Digits

Given a non-negative integer num represented as a string, remove k digits from the number so that the new number is the smallest possible.

Note:

• The length of num is less than 10002 and will be ≥ k.
• The given num does not contain any leading zero.

Example 1:

Input: num = "1432219", k = 3
Output: "1219"
Explanation: Remove the three digits 4, 3, and 2 to form the new number 1219 which is the smallest.

Example 2:

Input: num = "10200", k = 1
Output: "200"
Explanation: Remove the leading 1 and the number is 200. Note that the output must not contain leading zeroes.

Example 3:

Input: num = "10", k = 2
Output: "0"
Explanation: Remove all the digits from the number and it is left with nothing which is 0.

采用贪心算法，因为数字的开头不能为0，所以如果从左边第二位开始如果有一个或连续的若干个0，则将左边第一位删除，这等于将那些0都删除，另外每次从左往右找到第一个下降的数并删除，直到删除了k个数位。算法的时间复杂度为O(n)。

class Solution {
public:
    string removeKdigits(string num, int k) {
        int n;
        while(true){
            n = num.length();
            if(n <= k || n == 0) return "0";
            if(k-- == 0) return num;
            if(num[1] == '0'){
                int firstNotZero = 1;
                while(firstNotZero < num.length()  && num[firstNotZero] == '0') firstNotZero ++;
                num=num.substr(firstNotZero);
            } else{
                int startIndex = 0;
                while(startIndex < num.length() - 1  && num[startIndex] <= num[startIndex + 1]) startIndex ++;
                num.erase(startIndex,1);
            }
        }
    }
};