How to Efficiently Merge Sorted Lists in Python

Combining Sorted Lists Efficiently in Python

You have two sorted lists of objects, and you need to combine them into one sorted list. While a simple sort may seem like a straightforward solution, there are more efficient approaches available in Python.

Python's Merge Function

One such method is to utilize the merge function from Python's heapq module. This function is specifically designed for merging sorted lists and provides a highly efficient implementation of the merge sort technique.

Code Example:

<code class="python">import heapq

list1 = [1, 5, 8, 10, 50]
list2 = [3, 4, 29, 41, 45, 49]

merged_list = list(heapq.merge(list1, list2))  # Merge the lists using heapq.merge()
print(merged_list)  # [1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 29, 41, 45, 49, 50]</code>

Benefits of Using Merge Function:

• Time Efficiency: The merge function leverages the merge sort algorithm, which offers a time complexity of O(n), where n is the total number of elements in both lists.
• Customization: For advanced use cases, you can specify custom comparison functions to adjust the sorting criteria.

By employing the merge function, you can achieve efficient and customizable merging of sorted lists in Python, ensuring that your data remains sorted in the desired order.

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