Arrays Linked Lists Questions Medium
To find the kth smallest element in a binary search tree, we can use the following approach:
1. Perform an in-order traversal of the binary search tree. In an in-order traversal, we visit the left subtree, then the current node, and finally the right subtree.
2. While performing the traversal, maintain a counter variable to keep track of the number of nodes visited so far.
3. When visiting a node, increment the counter and check if it is equal to k. If it is, then we have found the kth smallest element and we can return the value of that node.
4. If the counter is less than k, continue the in-order traversal on the right subtree of the current node.
5. If the counter is greater than k, continue the in-order traversal on the left subtree of the current node.
By following this approach, we can efficiently find the kth smallest element in a binary search tree with a time complexity of O(h + k), where h is the height of the tree.