Merge Sort (JS Example)

Note: This is not a "professionally written" post. This is a post sharing personal notes I wrote down while preparing for FAANG interviews.

Merge Sort Breakdown

• Worst Complexity: n*log(n)
• Average Complexity: n*log(n)
• Best Complexity: n*log(n)
• Space Complexity: n
• Method: Merging
• Stable: Yes

Merge Sort Explained

In computer science, merge sort is an efficient, general-purpose, and comparison-based sorting algorithm. Most implementations produce a stable sort, which means that the order of equal elements is the same in the input and output.

Merge Sort Notes

• Divide & Conquer sorting algorithm
• Stable sorting algorithm
• Quick sort has a better space complexity than merge sort
• Merge sort is a stable sort while quick sort is unstable
• Merge sort's worst case time complexity is better than quick sorts

Merge Sort JavaScript Implementation

/*----------------------------------------------------------
 |   Merge Sort
 *----------------------------------------------------------
 |
 |   Time Complexity 
 |      . Best: O(n log n)
 |      . Aver: O(n log n)
 |      . Worst: O(n log n) 
 | 
 |   Space Complexity
 |      . O(n)
 |
 |   Divide And Conquer Sort
 |   Stable Sort
 |   Quick Sort Has A Better Space Complexity Than Merge Sort
 |   Merge Sorts Worst Case Time Complexity Is Better Than Quick Sort
 |   Merge Sort is A Stable Sort While Quick Sort is an Unstable Sort
 */

const merge = (left = [], right = [], merged = []) => {
  let compare = ([a], [b]) => (a ?? b+1) < (b ?? a+1)
  let side = () => compare(left, right) ? left : right

  while (left.length && right.length) merged.push(side().shift())
  while (right.length) merged.push(right.shift())
  while (left.length) merged.push(left.shift())

  return merged
}

const MergeSort = (items = []) => {
  if (items.length <= 1) return items

  const middle = Math.floor(items.length/2)


  return merge(
    MergeSort(items.slice(0, middle)),
    MergeSort(items.slice(middle, items.length))
  )
}


module.exports = MergeSort

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