Java: Interleave two integer based arraylists -> good approach?

Question

Homework: Looking for better strategy, or approach rather than complete code.

I\'v got two arrayLists of integers under two conditions:

1. th

Answer 1

A few comments:

• I would probably have returned a new List instead of arbitrarily modifying one of them
• The new algorithm is then simpler:
  • create a new empty list
  • loop on a counter from 0 to the min of the two lists' sizes and interleave
  • when you are done, check if one of the lists has more items and add them (for example with a combination of addAll and subList)
  • return the list
• If you don't need to mutate the two original lists, you can declare them in a shorter way with: List numbers = Arrays.asList(10, 20, 30, 40); - note that it creates a fixed-size list so you can't add or remove
• With your current code, instead of duplicating things you could have something like: List listSmall, listBig; if (list1.size() < list2.size()) { listSmall = list1; listBig = list2; } else { /* the opposite */} - then you know that listSmall is the small one and you only need one loop.