Feature #2: Merge Tweets In Twitter Feed
Understand how to merge two sorted arrays representing Twitter feeds using pointers. Explore an efficient in-place algorithm to add a new user’s tweets into an existing feed while maintaining chronological order. Learn the technique’s time and space complexities to prepare for coding interviews involving real-world data merging scenarios.
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Description
For the next feature, we have to implement a module that adds a user’s Tweets into an already populated Twitter feed in chronological order. Let’s assume that userA just started following userB. At this point, we want userB's Tweets to show up in userA's Twitter feed. We already have a chronologically sorted list of Tweets that will appear on userA's feed. Our job is to merge it with the list of userB's Tweets, which are also chronologically sorted.
As input, we will be given two sorted integer arrays, feed and tweets. The integers represent the posting time of the Tweets. We are also given the number of elements initialized in both of the arrays, which are m and n, respectively.
Note: Assume that
feedhas a size equal tom + nsuch that it has enough space to hold additional elements fromtweets.
Solution
We can solve this problem by comparing both arrays from the end and populating the result in the feed array. Take a look at the complete algorithm below:
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First, we will initialize two pointers,
p1andp2, that point to ...