merge.theory.txt

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GOAL ==>                          #Concatenating several sorted arrays into a single sorted array.
                                  #Keeps duplicates.

K-WAY MERGE ==>                   #When merging k several arrays

ITERATIVE MERGE ==>               #Concatenate arrays then apply a merge sort
                                  #Time complexity: O(n * log n)
                                  #Space complexity: O(n)
                                  #Can be distributed

DIRECT MERGE ==>                  #Extract highest value among all k arrays, then iterate
                                  #Time complexity: O(n*k)
                                  #Space complexity: O(n)
                                  #  - O(1) when using linked lists
                                  #Variants if high k:
                                  #  - store lists heads into a heap or a tournament tree (like tournament sorts),
                                  #    making it O(n * log k)
                                  #  - divide and conquer, merging two arrays at a time
                                  #2-way merge is called "binary merge".