how would you sort n sorted lists with average length K in O(n*log K) time?

Question

how would you sort n sorted lists with average length K in O(n*log K) time?

Answer 1

I believe it is possible to achieve O(N*log(K)), but not in the worst case.

Consider sorting these lists:

{0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10},
{10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20},
{20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30}  

My human brain can easily sort those lists without reading every value, so there should be an algorithm that can do the same. We need to merge while using a modified binary search to look for ranges of values.

In the worst case, you get O(N*K), because every value must be compared. Example:

{0,2,4,6,8},
{1,3,5,7,9}

Here is my solution in Go, which I would only use if I knew the sorted lists usually have overlap regions that are small relative to K:

// variation of binary search that finds largest
// value up to and including max
func findNext(a []int, imin int, vmax int) int {
    imax := len(a) - 1
    best := -1
    for imin <= imax {
        imid := imin + ((imax - imin) / 2)
        if a[imid] == vmax {
            return imid
        } else if a[imid] < vmax {
            best = imid
            imin = imid + 1
        } else {
            imax = imid - 1
        }
    }
    return best
}

func sortNSortedLists(in [][]int) []int {
    var out []int
    cursors := make([]int, len(in))
    for {
        // Find the array indices that have the smallest
        // and next to smallest value (may be same) at
        // their current cursor.
        minIdx1 := -1
        minIdx2 := -1
        minVal1 := math.MaxInt32
        minVal2 := math.MaxInt32
        for i, cursor := range cursors {
            if cursor >= len(in[i]) {
                continue
            }
            if in[i][cursor] < minVal1 {
                minIdx2 = minIdx1
                minVal2 = minVal1
                minIdx1 = i
                minVal1 = in[i][cursor]
            } else if in[i][cursor] < minVal2 {
                minIdx2 = i
                minVal2 = in[i][cursor]
            }
        }
        if minIdx1 == -1 {
            // no values
            break
        }
        if minIdx2 == -1 {
            // only one array has values, so append the
            // remainder of it to output
            out = append(out, in[minIdx1][cursors[minIdx1]:]...)
            break
        }

        // If inVal1 is smaller than inVal2,
        // append to output all values from minVal1 to minVal2 found in
        // the minIdx1 array, and update the cursor for the minIdx1 array.
        if minVal1 < minVal2 {
            firstCursor := cursors[minIdx1]
            lastCursor := findNext(in[minIdx1], firstCursor, minVal2)
            if lastCursor != -1 {
                out = append(out, in[minIdx1][firstCursor:lastCursor+1]...)
                cursors[minIdx1] = lastCursor+1
                continue
            }
        }
        // Append the single value to output
        out = append(out, minVal1)
        cursors[minIdx1]++
    }
    return out
}