Merge Two Sorted Lists

Jin Shang bio photo By Jin Shang

Merge two sorted linked lists and return it as a new list. The new list should be made by splicing together the nodes of the first two lists.

Example:

Input: 1->2->4, 1->3->4
Output: 1->1->2->3->4->4

Solution:

Iterative: Use a zombie head and a get helper function

/**
 * Definition for singly-linked list.
 * struct ListNode {
 *     int val;
 *     ListNode *next;
 *     ListNode(int x) : val(x), next(NULL) {}
 * };
 */
class Solution {
public:
    inline int get(ListNode* l){
        return l?l->val:INT_MAX;
    }
    ListNode* mergeTwoLists(ListNode* l1, ListNode* l2) {
        ListNode* head = new ListNode(0);
        ListNode* cur = head;
        while(l1 || l2){
            if(get(l1)>get(l2)){
                swap(l1,l2);
            }
            cur->next = l1;
            cur = cur->next;
            l1 = l1->next;
        }
        return head->next;
    }
};

Recursive:

/**
 * Definition for singly-linked list.
 * struct ListNode {
 *     int val;
 *     ListNode *next;
 *     ListNode(int x) : val(x), next(NULL) {}
 * };
 */
class Solution {
public:
    ListNode* mergeTwoLists(ListNode* l1, ListNode* l2) {
        if (l1 == NULL) {
            return l2;
        }
        if (l2 == NULL) {
            return l1;
        }

        if (l1->val < l2->val) {
            l1->next = mergeTwoLists(l2, l1->next);
            return l1;
        } else {
            l2->next = mergeTwoLists(l2->next, l1);
            return l2;
        }     
    }
};