Question

I have 8 sorted lists that I need to merge into 1 sorted list. I don’t know the best way to do this. I was thinking of the following:

void merge_lists_inplace(list<int>& l1, const list<int>& l2)
{
    list<int>::iterator end_it = l1.end();
    --end_it;
    copy(l2.begin(), l2.end(), back_inserter(l1));
    ++end_it;
    inplace_merge(l1.begin(), end_it, l1.end());
}

list<int> merge_8_lists(list<int>[8] lists)
{
    merge_lists_inplace(lists[0], lists[1]);
    merge_lists_inplace(lists[2], lists[3]);
    merge_lists_inplace(lists[4], lists[5]);
    merge_lists_inplace(lists[6], lists[7]);

    merge_lists_inplace(lists[0], lists[2]);
    merge_lists_inplace(lists[4], lists[6]);

    merge_lists_inplace(lists[0], lists[4]);

    return lists[0];
}

But would it be better to just worry about the sorting last?

list<int> merge_8_lists(list<int>[8] lists)
{
    for (int i = 1; i < 8; ++i)
        copy(lists[i].begin(), lists[i].end(), back_inserter(lists[0]));        
    lists[0].sort();
    return lists[0];
}

Side note: I don’t care that the lists are modified.

Answer 1

A simple extension of merge sort’s merge phase can do this in O(n lg m) time (where n = total number of items and m = number of lists), using a priority queue (eg, a heap). Pseudocode:

Let P = a priority queue of the sorted lists, sorted by the smallest element in each list
Let O = an empty output list
While P is not empty:
  Let L = remove the minimum element from P
  Remove the first element from L and add it to O
  If L is not empty, add L to P

And a simple (untested!) concrete implementation in C++:

#include <list>
#include <set>

template<typename T>
struct cmp_list {
    bool operator()(const std::list<T> *a, const std::list<T> *b) const {
        return a->front() < b->front();
    }
};

template<typename T>
void merge_sorted_lists(std::list<T> &output, std::list<std::list<T> > &input)
{
    // Use a std::set as our priority queue. This has the same complexity analysis as
    // a heap, but has a higher constant factor.
    // Implementing a min-heap is left as an exercise for the reader,
    // as is a non-mutating version
    std::set<std::list<T> *, cmp_list<T> > pq;

    for ( typename std::list<std::list<T> >::iterator it = input.begin();
            it != input.end(); it++)
    {
        if (it->empty())
            continue;
        pq.insert(&*it);
    }

    while (!pq.empty()) {
        std::list<T> *p = *pq.begin();
        pq.erase(pq.begin());

        output.push_back(p->front());
        p->pop_front();

        if (!p->empty())
            pq.insert(p);
    }
}