Search⌘ K
AI Features
Home
Courses
Grokking the Coding Interview Patterns in Go

Solution: Kth Smallest Number in M Sorted Lists

Explore how to find the kth smallest number among multiple sorted lists using the K-way merge pattern. Understand the min heap approach for efficient merging, analyze time and space complexities, and implement an optimized solution that handles large inputs effectively.

We'll cover the following...

Statement

Given a list, lists, containing mm sorted lists of integers in ascending order, and an integer k, find the kthk^{th} smallest element among all the lists.

Even if some values appear multiple times across the lists, each occurrence is treated as a unique element when determining the kthk^{th} smallest number.

If k exceeds the total number of elements across all lists, return the largest element among them. If the lists are empty, return 0.

Constraints:

  • 1≤m≤501\leq m \leq50
  • 0≤0\leq lists[i].length ≤50\leq 50
  • −109≤-10^9\leq lists[i][j] ≤109\leq 10^9
...