LeetCode - 21. Merge Two Sorted Lists

21. Merge Two Sorted Lists

Iterative

in-place 1

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

class Solution(object):
    def mergeTwoLists(self, l1, l2):
        """
        :type l1: ListNode
        :type l2: ListNode
        :rtype: ListNode
        """
        head = cur = ListNode(0)
        while(l1 and l2):
            if l1.val < l2.val:
                cur.next = l1
                l1 = l1.next
            else:
                cur.next = l2
                l2 = l2.next
            cur = cur.next
        cur.next = l1 or l2
        return head.next
        

Time Complexity: O(n+m) [n=size of l1; m=size of l2]
Space Complexity: O(1)

In-place 2

class Solution:
    def mergeTwoLists(self, l1: ListNode, l2: ListNode) -> ListNode:
        dummy = pre = ListNode(0)
        pre.next = l1
        while l1 and l2:
            if l1.val<l2.val:
                l1 = l1.next
            else:
                pre.next = l2
                temp = l2.next
                l2.next = l1
                l2 = temp
            pre = pre.next
        pre.next = l1 or l2
        return dummy.next

Time Complexity: O(n+m)
Space Complexity: O(1)

Recursion

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

class Solution:
    def mergeTwoLists(self, l1: ListNode, l2: ListNode) -> ListNode:
        if None in (l1, l2):
            return l1 or l2
        if l1.val < l2.val:
            l1.next = self.mergeTwoLists(l1.next, l2)
            return l1
        else:
            l2.next = self.mergeTwoLists(l1, l2.next)
            return l2

Time and Space Complexity(stack frame): O(n+m)