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?

Solution:

The idea is to use in-order traversal and find the k-th element.



Code:

/**
 * Definition for a binary tree node.
 * public class TreeNode {
 *     int val;
 *     TreeNode left;
 *     TreeNode right;
 *     TreeNode(int x) { val = x; }
 * }
 */
public class Solution {
    public int kthSmallest(TreeNode root, int k) {
        Stack<TreeNode> stack = new Stack<>();
        while (root != null || !stack.isEmpty()) {
            while (root != null) {
                stack.push(root);
                root = root.left;
            }
            root = stack.pop();
            if (--k == 0) {
                break;
            }
            root = root.right;
        }
        return root.val;
    }
}