LeetCode 230: Kth Smallest Element in a BST

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

解题思路

思路一：返回中序遍历下第 k 个元素。下面代码利用了二叉树中序遍历的非递归算法：

/**
 * 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) {
        stack<TreeNode *> ns;
        TreeNode *p = root;
        int count = 0;
        while (p != NULL || !ns.empty()) {
            while (p != NULL) {
                ns.push(p);
                p = p->left;
            }
            if (!ns.empty()) {
                p = ns.top();
                ns.pop();

                if (++count == k) return p->val;

                p = p->right;
            }
        }
    }
};

思路二：如果 TreeNode 有一个属性 leftCnt 记录了左子树的节点个数，则在查找时可以用二分查找，时间复杂度为 $O(height of BST)$。

记当前节点为node

当node不为空时循环：

    若k == node.leftCnt + 1：则返回node

    否则，若k > node.leftCnt：则令k -= node.leftCnt + 1，令node = node.right

    否则，node = node.left