I was recently brushing up on some fundamentals and found merge sorting a linked list to be a pretty good challenge. If you have a good implementation then show it off here.
Wonder why it should be big challenge as it is stated here, here is a straightforward implementation in Java with out any "clever tricks".
//The main function
public static Node merge_sort(Node head)
{
if(head == null || head.next == null)
return head;
Node middle = getMiddle(head); //get the middle of the list
Node left_head = head;
Node right_head = middle.next;
middle.next = null; //split the list into two halfs
return merge(merge_sort(left_head), merge_sort(right_head)); //recurse on that
}
//Merge subroutine to merge two sorted lists
public static Node merge(Node a, Node b)
{
Node dummyHead = new Node();
for(Node current = dummyHead; a != null && b != null; current = current.next;)
{
if(a.data <= b.data)
{
current.next = a;
a = a.next;
}
else
{
current.next = b;
b = b.next;
}
}
dummyHead.next = (a == null) ? b : a;
return dummyHead.next;
}
//Finding the middle element of the list for splitting
public static Node getMiddle(Node head)
{
if(head == null)
return head;
Node slow = head, fast = head;
while(fast.next != null && fast.next.next != null)
{
slow = slow.next;
fast = fast.next.next;
}
return slow;
}