Interview Question: Merge two sorted singly linked lists without creating new nodes

Question

This is a programming question asked during a written test for an interview. \"You have two singly linked lists that are already sorted, you have to merge them and return a

Answer 1

I would like to share how i thought the solution... i saw the solution that involves recursion and they are pretty amazing, is the outcome of well functional and modular thinking. I really appreciate the sharing.

I would like to add that recursion won't work for big lits, the stack calls will overflow; so i decided to try the iterative approach... and this is what i get.

The code is pretty self explanatory, i added some inline comments to try to assure this.

If you don't get it, please notify me and i will improve the readability (perhaps i am having a misleading interpretation of my own code).

import java.util.Random;


public class Solution {

    public static class Node> implements Comparable> {

        T data;
        Node next;

        @Override
        public int compareTo(Node otherNode) {
            return data.compareTo(otherNode.data);
        }

        @Override
        public String toString() {
            return ((data != null) ? data.toString() + ((next != null) ? "," + next.toString() : "") : "null");
        }
    }

    public static Node merge(Node firstLeft, Node firstRight) {
        combine(firstLeft, firstRight);
        return Comparision.perform(firstLeft, firstRight).min;

    }

    private static void combine(Node leftNode, Node rightNode) {
        while (leftNode != null && rightNode != null) {
            // get comparision data about "current pair of nodes being analized".
            Comparision comparision = Comparision.perform(leftNode, rightNode);
            // stores references to the next nodes
            Node nextLeft = leftNode.next; 
            Node nextRight = rightNode.next;
            // set the "next node" of the "minor node" between the "current pair of nodes being analized"...
            // ...to be equals the minor node between the "major node" and "the next one of the minor node" of the former comparision.
            comparision.min.next = Comparision.perform(comparision.max, comparision.min.next).min;
            if (comparision.min == leftNode) {
                leftNode = nextLeft;
            } else {
                rightNode = nextRight;
            }
        }
    }

/** Stores references to two nodes viewed as one minimum and one maximum. The static factory method populates properly the instance being build */
    private static class Comparision {

        private final Node min;
        private final Node max;

        private Comparision(Node min, Node max) {
            this.min = min;
            this.max = max;
        }

        private static Comparision perform(Node a, Node b) {
            Node min, max;
            if (a != null && b != null) {
                int comparision = a.compareTo(b);
                if (comparision <= 0) {
                    min = a;
                    max = b;
                } else {
                    min = b;
                    max = a;
                }
            } else {
                max = null;
                min = (a != null) ? a : b;
            }
            return new Comparision(min, max);
        }
    }

// Test example....
    public static void main(String args[]) {
        Node firstLeft = buildList(20);
        Node firstRight = buildList(40);
        Node firstBoth = merge(firstLeft, firstRight);
        System.out.println(firstBoth);
    }

// someone need to write something like this i guess...
    public static Node buildList(int size) {
        Random r = new Random();
        Node first = new Node<>();
        first.data = 0;
        first.next = null;
        Node current = first;
        Integer last = first.data;
        for (int i = 1; i < size; i++) {
            Node node = new Node<>();
            node.data = last + r.nextInt(5);
            last = node.data;
            node.next = null;
            current.next = node;
            current = node;
        }
        return first;
    }

}