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mediumDSA

How do you merge two sorted arrays?

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01

Understand the problem

Explain merging.

sortingmerge
02

Attempt it yourself

Sketch your approach before reading the solution — that's what interviews test.

Nudge consolestandby

Stuck? Beam a request up — the console returns a conceptual nudge that guides your logic without spoiling the implementation.

03

Study the solution

Use two pointers, one per array, repeatedly appending the smaller current element to the result — O(m+n). When merging into one array in place (from the back) you avoid extra space, a common interview twist.

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04

Read the code

Two-pointer merge
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def merge_sorted(a, b):
    i = j = 0
    out = []
    while i < len(a) and j < len(b):
        if a[i] <= b[j]:
            out.append(a[i]); i += 1
        else:
            out.append(b[j]); j += 1
    out.extend(a[i:])
    out.extend(b[j:])
    return out


# --- demo ---
print(merge_sorted([1, 3, 5], [2, 4, 6]))   # [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
05

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