402. 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.

要保持原来的顺序不变，从字符串中摘掉几个数，使剩下的字符串值最小。思路是从前向后遍历，删掉前k个比后面的数大的数。拿1432219为例，4比3大，删掉4，3比2大，删掉3，2比1大，删掉2，剩下了1219，是最小的数。代码如下：

public class Solution {
    public String removeKdigits(String num, int k) {
        Stack<Character> stack = new Stack<Character>();
        if (k == num.length()) {
            return "0";
        }
        for (char ch: num.toCharArray()) {
            while (k > 0 && !stack.isEmpty() && stack.peek() > ch) {
                stack.pop();
                k --;
            }
            stack.push(ch);
        }
        //corner sample:11111
        while (k > 0) {
            stack.pop();
            k --;
        }
        StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
        while (!stack.isEmpty()) {
            builder.append(stack.pop());
        }
        builder = builder.reverse();
        while (builder.length() > 1 && builder.charAt(0) == '0') {
            builder.deleteCharAt(0);
        }
        return builder.toString();
    }
}