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Hard

Merge K Sorted Arrays

Objective: Given k sorted array, write an algorithm to merge Them into One sorted array.

Example :

int [][] A = new int[5][];

A[0] = new int[] { 1, 5, 8, 9 };
A[1] = new int[] { 2, 3, 7, 10 };
A[2] = new int[] { 4, 6, 11, 15 };
A[3] = new int[] { 9, 14, 16, 19 };
A[4] = new int[] { 2, 4, 6, 9 };

Output:
[1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 19]

Naive Solution: O(nkLognk)

  • Create a result[] of size n*k.
  • Copy all the elements from k arrays into the result array. This will take O(nk).
  • Sort the result[] using Merge Sort. This will take O(nkLognk) time.

Better Approach: O(nkLogk)

  • Create a result[] of size n*k.
  • Create Min-Heap of type HeapNode.( HeapNode- Every Node will store the data and the list no from which it belongs).
  • Now take one element from each of the K lists and create HeapNode object and insert it into min-Heap.
  • Extract the minimum Node from the min-Heap, and insert the data into the result array.
  • The extracted node will also contain the list to which it belongs, insert the next element from that list into min-Heap.
  • If at any point in time any list gets over, insert +∞ into min-Heap.
  • Keep repeating until all the K list gets over.

See the animation below for a better understanding.


Complete Code:

Code:


[1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 19]

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