Merge sort is one of the fastest sorting algorithms, and is used widely by many programmers. It sorts the elements using a divide and conquer algorithm. This makes it even faster for sorting huge datasets with the help of multiple machines simultaneously. The complexity of merge sort is O(n log n), which is considered to be the shortest possible time required for sorting n number of elements.
Understanding merge sort
How the merge sort algorithm works
As we already know that it works using he divide and conquer principle, let's understand how it really divides the input to do the job. It sorts any input list as follows:
- It divides the input list (unsorted) into two sublists from the middle index. Now the algorithm has...