21. 合并两个有序链表

 将两个有序链表合并为一个新的有序链表并返回。新链表是通过拼接给定的两个链表的所有节点组成的。 

这个步骤是归并排序的第二步骤。

# Definition for singly-linked list.
# class ListNode:
#     def __init__(self, x):
#         self.val = x
#         self.next = None

class Solution:
    def mergeTwoLists(self, l1, l2):
        # maintain an unchanging reference to node ahead of the return node.
        prehead = ListNode(-1)
        # 最后要输出结果的，所以要保存结果里的头指针
        prev = prehead
        while l1 and l2:
            if l1.val <= l2.val:
                prev.next = l1
                l1 = l1.next
            else:
                prev.next = l2
                l2 = l2.next
            # 让结果指针往下走            
            prev = prev.next

        # exactly one of l1 and l2 can be non-null at this point, so connect
        # the non-null list to the end of the merged list.
        prev.next = l1 if l1 is not None else l2

        return prehead.next