单链表的归并算法

转自 http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/archives/7740

Merge Sort for Linked Lists

Merge sort is often preferred for sorting a linked list. The slow random-access performance of a linked list makes some other algorithms (such as quicksort) perform poorly, and others (such as heapsort) completely impossible.

Let head be the first node of the linked list to be sorted and headRef be the pointer to head. Note that we need a reference to head in MergeSort() as the below implementation changes next links to sort the linked lists (not data at the nodes), so head node has to be changed if the data at original head is not the smallest value in linked list.

MergeSort(headRef)
1) If head is NULL or there is only one element in the Linked List
    then return.
2) Else divide the linked list into two halves.
      FrontBackSplit(head, &a, &b); /* a and b are two halves */
3) Sort the two halves a and b.
      MergeSort(a);
      MergeSort(b);
4) Merge the sorted a and b (using SortedMerge() discussed here)
   and update the head pointer using headRef.
     *headRef = SortedMerge(a, b);

 

#include<stdio.h>
#include<stdlib.h>
 
/* Link list node */
struct node
{
    int data;
    struct node* next;
};
 
//---------------------------------------------------------------
 
/* sorts the linked list by changing next pointers (not data) */
void MergeSort(struct node** headRef)
{
  struct node* head = *headRef;
  struct node* a;
  struct node* b;
 
  /* Base case -- length 0 or 1 */
  if ((head == NULL) || (head->next == NULL))
  {
    return;
  }
 
  /* Split head into 'a' and 'b' sublists */
  FrontBackSplit(head, &a, &b);
 
  /* Recursively sort the sublists */
  MergeSort(&a);
  MergeSort(&b);
 
  /* answer = merge the two sorted lists together */
  *headRef = SortedMerge(a, b);
}
 
/* See http://geeksforgeeks.org/?p=3622 for details of this
   function */
//递归 合并
 struct node* SortedMerge(struct node* a, struct node* b)
{
  struct node* result = NULL;
 
  /* Base cases */
  if (a == NULL)
     return(b);
  else if (b==NULL)
     return(a);
 
  /* Pick either a or b, and recur */
  if (a->data <= b->data)
  {
     result = a;
     result->next = SortedMerge(a->next, b);
  }
  else
  {
     result = b;
     result->next = SortedMerge(a, b->next);
  }
  return(result);
}
 
/* UTILITY FUNCTIONS */
/* Split the nodes of the given list into front and back halves,
     and return the two lists using the reference parameters.
     If the length is odd, the extra node should go in the front list.
     Uses the fast/slow pointer strategy.  */
//采用快指针和慢指针，得到两个half
 void FrontBackSplit(struct node* source,
          struct node** frontRef, struct node** backRef)
{
  struct node* fast;
  struct node* slow;
  if (source==NULL || source->next==NULL)
  {
    /* length < 2 cases */
    *frontRef = source;
    *backRef = NULL;
  }
  else
  {
    slow = source;
    fast = source->next;
 
    /* Advance 'fast' two nodes, and advance 'slow' one node */
    while (fast != NULL)
    {
      fast = fast->next;
      if (fast != NULL)
      {
        slow = slow->next;
        fast = fast->next;
      }
    }
 
    /* 'slow' is before the midpoint in the list, so split it in two
      at that point. */
    *frontRef = source;
    *backRef = slow->next;
    slow->next = NULL;
  }
}