Merge sort and returning references - a couple of questions
The assignment I have is to effectively write my own merge sort algorithm. I've started off fine but I'm having a bit of trouble working out exactly what I want to do, a crucial step in actually writing the code.
The idea is to use a recursive function:
(Obviously there are details that I haven't come onto yet, such as stopping if the size of A is < 1)
The part I'm having trouble with is not the theory, but rather the implementation and syntax of it.
When I *split* the array, I am not actually creating any new arrays. The issue here is that merging the lists is not possible in one array. Should I create a single new array for my final sorted list? And what exactly should my function be returning every time?
Any help or advice would be really appreciated.
The idea is to use a recursive function:
sort(A){
split A
sort(A1)
sort(A2)
merge A1 and A2
}
|
(Obviously there are details that I haven't come onto yet, such as stopping if the size of A is < 1)
The part I'm having trouble with is not the theory, but rather the implementation and syntax of it.
When I *split* the array, I am not actually creating any new arrays. The issue here is that merging the lists is not possible in one array. Should I create a single new array for my final sorted list? And what exactly should my function be returning every time?
Any help or advice would be really appreciated.
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