#402
Remove K Digits
medium · verified · 36.4% accepted · 10,540 likes · top 14%
string · stack · greedy · monotonic stack
Description
Given string num representing a non-negative integer num, and an integer k, return the smallest possible integer after removing k digits from num.
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.
Solution