Merge Sorted Lists

Unit 4 Session 2 (Click for link to problem statements)

U-nderstand

Understand what the interviewer is asking for by using test cases and questions about the problem.

• What happens if one of the lists is empty?
  • If one list is empty, the function should simply return the other list as it is already sorted.
• How should the function handle lists of different sizes?
  • The function should continue to merge until it has exhausted one list and then append the remainder of the other list.

P-lan

Plan the solution with appropriate visualizations and pseudocode.

General Idea: Utilize two pointers to track positions in the two sorted input lists, comparing and appending the smaller current elements to the result list until one list is exhausted.

1) Initialize an empty list called `result` for the merged output.
2) Use two pointers, `l1_index` and `l2_index`, to track positions in `lst1` and `lst2` respectively.
3) While both pointers are within the bounds of their lists:
  a) Compare the elements at the pointers.
  b) Append the smaller element to `result` and move the corresponding pointer.
4) Once one list is exhausted, append the remaining elements of the other list to `result`.
5) Return the merged list.

⚠️ Common Mistakes

• Not handling the case where the remaining elements after the main loop are not appended.
• Incorrect comparison logic leading to unsorted results.

I-mplement

def merge_sorted_lists(lst1, lst2):
    result = []
    l1_index = 0
    l2_index = 0
    
    while l1_index < len(lst1) and l2_index < len(lst2):
        if lst1[l1_index] < lst2[l2_index]:
            result.append(lst1[l1_index])
            l1_index += 1
        else:
            result.append(lst2[l2_index])
            l2_index += 1
            
    while l1_index < len(lst1):
	    result.append(lst1[l1_index])
	    l1_index += 1
	  
	  while l2_index < len(lst2):
	    result.append(lst2[l2_index])
	    l2_index += 1
	    
    return result