index.md

21. Merge Two Sorted Lists

You are given the heads of two sorted linked lists list1 and list2.

Merge the two lists into one sorted list. The list should be made by splicing together the nodes of the first two lists.

Return the head of the merged linked list.

Example 1:

Input: list1 = [1,2,4], list2 = [1,3,4] Output: [1,1,2,3,4,4]

Example 2:

Input: list1 = [], list2 = [] Output: []

Example 3:

Input: list1 = [], list2 = [0] Output: [0]

Constraints:

• The number of nodes in both lists is in the range [0, 50].
• -100 <= Node.val <= 100
• Both list1 and list2 are sorted in non-decreasing order.

Solution

class ListNode:
    def __init__(self, val=0, next=None):
        self.val = val
        self.next = next

class Solution:
    def mergeTwoLists(self, list1: ListNode, list2: ListNode) -> ListNode:
        # Create a dummy node to start the merged list
        dummy = ListNode(-1)
        # Pointer to the last node of the merged list
        tail = dummy

        # Loop until one of the lists becomes empty
        while list1 and list2:
            if list1.val < list2.val:
                tail.next = list1
                list1 = list1.next
            else:
                tail.next = list2
                list2 = list2.next
            tail = tail.next

        # Attach the remaining elements of list1 or list2
        tail.next = list1 if list1 else list2

        # Return the head of the merged list (skipping the dummy node)
        return dummy.next

Thoughts

Simple straightforward O(n) time and O(1) space complexity