LeetCode-in-Java

21. Merge Two Sorted Lists

Easy

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

Example 1:

Input: l1 = [1,2,4], l2 = [1,3,4]

Output: [1,1,2,3,4,4]

Example 2:

Input: l1 = [], l2 = []

Output: []

Example 3:

Input: l1 = [], l2 = [0]

Output: [0]

Constraints:

• The number of nodes in both lists is in the range [0, 50].
• -100 <= Node.val <= 100
• Both l1 and l2 are sorted in non-decreasing order.

To solve the Merge Two Sorted Lists problem in Java with a Solution class, we’ll implement a recursive approach. Here are the steps:

1. Define a ListNode class to represent a node in the linked list.
2. Define a Solution class with a method named mergeTwoLists that takes two linked lists l1 and l2 as input and returns a merged sorted list.
3. The base case for the recursion is when either l1 or l2 is null. In this case, return the non-null list because it’s already sorted.
4. Compare the values of the heads of l1 and l2. Let head be the smaller value of the two heads.
5. Recursively call mergeTwoLists with the next node of the smaller head and the other list that remained unchanged.
6. Update the next pointer of the smaller head to point to the result of the recursive call.
7. Return the smaller head, which is the merged sorted list.

Here’s the implementation:

public class Solution {
    static class ListNode {
        int val;
        ListNode next;

        ListNode(int val) {
            this.val = val;
        }
    }

    public ListNode mergeTwoLists(ListNode l1, ListNode l2) {
        if (l1 == null) {
            return l2;
        }
        if (l2 == null) {
            return l1;
        }

        ListNode head;
        if (l1.val < l2.val) {
            head = l1;
            head.next = mergeTwoLists(l1.next, l2);
        } else {
            head = l2;
            head.next = mergeTwoLists(l1, l2.next);
        }

        return head;
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Solution solution = new Solution();

        // Test cases
        ListNode l1 = new ListNode(1);
        l1.next = new ListNode(2);
        l1.next.next = new ListNode(4);

        ListNode l2 = new ListNode(1);
        l2.next = new ListNode(3);
        l2.next.next = new ListNode(4);

        ListNode mergedList = solution.mergeTwoLists(l1, l2);
        while (mergedList != null) {
            System.out.print(mergedList.val + " ");
            mergedList = mergedList.next;
        }
        System.out.println(); // newline
    }
}

This implementation provides a solution to the Merge Two Sorted Lists problem in Java using a recursive approach.

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