[leetcode] 23. Merge k Sorted Lists

Merge k sorted linked lists and return it as one sorted list. Analyze and describe its complexity.

这道题是合并k个已排序链表，题目难度为Hard。

题目和21题（传送门）合并两个已排序链表相关，感兴趣的同学可以先看下21题。最直观的想法是将节点逐个存入堆中，然后再依次取出节点组建新的链表，这样题目就没什么难度了，关键在于堆的操作。这里用priority_queue来处理堆操作，priority_queue默认是大根堆，由于需要小根堆并且堆元素是指针，所以需要一个有自定义()操作的函数对象来作为比较函数。另外，堆还可以用STL中的make_heap()函数来实现。具体代码：

class Solution {
    struct cmp {
        bool operator()(ListNode* n1, ListNode* n2) {
            return n1->val > n2->val;
        }
    };
public:
    ListNode* mergeKLists(vector<ListNode*>& lists) {
        priority_queue<ListNode*, vector<ListNode*>, cmp> heap;
        ListNode* head = NULL;
        ListNode* cur = NULL;
        ListNode* pre = NULL;
        
        for(auto list:lists) {
            while(list) {
                heap.push(list);
                list = list->next;
            }
        }
        
        if(heap.empty()) return head;
        head = heap.top();
        while(!heap.empty()) {
            cur = heap.top();
            heap.pop();
            if(pre) pre->next = cur;
            pre = cur;
        }
        cur->next = NULL;
        
        return head;
    }
};

还可以用分治法来解决这道题，将所有链表分成两部分，分别合并两部分的链表，然后再将合并后的两个链表合并为最终链表。这样就把问题通过分治法转化为合并两个已排序链表，即21题了。具体代码：

class Solution {
    ListNode* mergeLists(const vector<ListNode*>& lists, int bgn, int end) {
        if(bgn > end) return NULL;
        if(bgn == end) return lists[bgn];
        int mid = (bgn + end) / 2;
        ListNode* l1 = mergeLists(lists, bgn, mid);
        ListNode* l2 = mergeLists(lists, mid+1, end);
        ListNode* head = NULL;
        ListNode* prev = NULL;
        
        if(!l1) return l2;
        else if(!l2) return l1;
        
        while(l1 && l2) {
            if(l1->val > l2->val) {
                if(!head) head = l2;
                if(prev) {
                    prev->next = l2;
                    prev = l2;
                }
                else prev = l2;
                l2 = l2->next;
            }
            else {
                if(!head) head = l1;
                if(prev) {
                    prev->next = l1;
                    prev = l1;
                }
                else prev = l1;
                l1 = l1->next;
            }
        }
        if(l1) prev->next = l1;
        if(l2) prev->next = l2;
        
        return head;
    }
public:
    ListNode* mergeKLists(vector<ListNode*>& lists) {
        return mergeLists(lists, 0, lists.size()-1);
    }
};